The BJP candidate from Mundka Assembly seat, Azad Singh, was expected to receive a major chunk of votes from the ladpur village that had boycotted the Municipal polls last year protesting against poor development of the area. Villagers said, they had united this time to vote for the BJP and teach the Congress a lesson. They alleged that the Congress Government did not consolidate their land in the last 104 years, due to which they have been unable to convert their land from agricultural usage to residential.
On Wednesday morning, residents of ladpur village came out in large numbers as the polling war began. In the first two hours (8 am to 10 am), 750 men and 550 women cast their votes. Azad is younger brother of former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma. “We wanted to teach a lesson to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and wanted to show her the consequences of not fulfilling promises,” said Master Nafe Singh, a retired school Principal who is a resident of ladpur village.
The small village in North-West Delhi, with a population of about 4,288, has been seeking consolidation of land holdings and increasing the lal Dora limits to create more space for villagers to build their houses. The villagers also do not have any proof of land ownership. In the absence of consolidation and the expansion of lal Dora, several villagers who have no land earmarked for residential purposes have been forced to construct houses on agricultural land, which is illegal.
Villagers claim that the last time consolidation was carried out was in 1908 by the British and since then the village has been neglected. “We have approached all the senior bureaucrats, senior ministers, including Delhi Chief Minister, but apart from assurances, we have got nothing,” said Master Azad Singh, another resident. He added that before the elections, panchayats were held to discuss in whose favour should they cast their votes.