The candidates contesting from mountainous constituencies were on their toes and extensively campaigned in their assembly segments but even then they were not able to reach out to many villages due to their sparse population and distant approach. The candidates tried to reach out to as many small villages possible in early days of campaigning but in last few days they tended to concentrate their efforts in the small towns, big villages and the population living along the roadsides. After end of the campaigning at 5 pm on Monday, the serious candidates wasted no time and started door to door campaign in the small towns.
In Uttarakhand there are 10,854 polling stations out of which 8,497 polling stations are located in rural areas.
Every assembly constituency of mountainous areas of the hill has more than 500 villages which are spread far and wide and sparsely populated. There are many small villages where the number of voters is less than fifty. Most of these sparsely populated villages are also not connected by roads. In such a situation the contestants choose to avoid visiting them and concentrate on the towns or bigger villages which also have small market where nearby population frequent.
“No candidate has cared to visit our village though its population is modest. In last elections too the story was similar. Most of the contestants have visited nearby Devrajkhal where small local market is there,’’ said Surendra Singh Rawat of Marda village which falls in Choubattakal constituency. In this constituency the election pitch is mainly concentrated in town of Satpuli and Ekeshwar and places like Choubattakhal, Naugaonkhal and villages located on the roads. Similarly the contestants of nearby Yamkeshwar assembly segment are more visible in places like Duggada, Dadamandi, Silogi, Yamkeshwar, Kandi, Bijni and Gaindkhal. In Kedarnath assembly the towns of Aagastyamuni, Ukimath and Guptkashi, Phata and Soneprayag are centers where the contestants are concentrating their activities. Mahesh Jugaran of Bairagarh village of Yamkeshwar assembly segment questioned as to what one can expect from such representatives who don’t have time to visit even during the time of elections.
“There are more than 600 villages in my constituency and despite my all efforts I could not visit half of them. Visiting a distant village is time consuming and considering their small population our supports ask us to avoid them and concentrate more on bigger villages and towns. It is also true that the people of distant sparsely populated village become very happy when we pay a visit to them,’’ said one of a contestants from Kedarnath assembly segment.