Around 6000 villagers of Udham Singh Nagar district in Uttarakhand on Wednesday decided to boycott polls, citing state government's failure in bringing development in the region.
Villagers in Udham Singh Nagar, which has seven administrative blocks - Bajpur, Gadarpur, Jaspur, Kashipur, Kichha, Khatima and Sitarganj - are disappointed and angry with government's failure to even provide basic infrastructure like roads.
"Our decision is that if nobody needs us, why should we cast our votes? We are considered insects. If there is power in our counting, then the government must definitely think about us. Definitely, we are with everyone. We will do the same as others in the village," said a villager, Girdhar.
Villagers also complained of receiving unjust treatment and blamed the state government of not working for their welfare.
"Neither we have roads nor bridges. I am 45-years-old and I have seen road only once. And this time we wouldn't cast our votes. Neither my family nor the people in our village will cast votes. There are five-ten villages over here, we all have discussed that we won't cast our votes. We will boycott polls and make others boycott them too," said another villager, Harminder.
Uttarakhand will go to polls in the eighth phase of polling on May 7 for five constituencies.
