Excelsior Correspondent
-Excelsior/Tilak Raj
DODA, Nov 25: Women, who generally remain busy in nourishing their families, this time came out in full strength to play greater role in ensuring proper nourishment of mountainous district of Doda, which largely remained under-developed till date. The yearning for holistic development was equally at its peak among the special voters like centenarians, dwarfs and deaf and dumb, who too participated in the electoral exercise in full strength.
At each and every polling station in this district women voters rubbed shoulders with the males to give a loud and clear message that this time their priority is to ensure proper nourishment of their respective areas and for that they can partially ignore their routine activities in their respective families.
‘Right from the early morning, the number of women voters was encouraging and they were even seen in the long queues at the scheduled timing for closure of voting exercise. This can be judged from the official figures, which state that at 10 am a total of 13947 female voters exercised their franchise against 17809 votes by the males and at 4 pm, the figures were 66442 votes by females as against 72825 by male voters in respect of Doda and Bhaderwah constituencies.
“We have realized that unless we come forward in full strength we cannot play key role in shaping the destiny of our district and by ensuring maximum participation we have given ample message in this regard”, Vidya Devi of Bhaderwah town said, adding “in the previous elections there was no enthusiasm among the women electorates of my locality but this time we decided to visit polling station together so that none of us can make any excuse”.
Bala Devi, a resident of village Chakka in Bhaderwah constituency was seen motivating her fellow women villagers in reaching the polling station to make use of their weapon for shaping the future of their village, which according to them, still sans basic amenities.
What to talk of young women voters even centenarians were not ready to remain indoors and participated in the electoral exercise with the hope that the new representative of their respective constituencies would lay complete focus on development and don’t make mountains an excuse for lack of development.
“I have reached the age of 102 while listening that our district is lacking development because of its tough terrain. It is due to non-serious approach of our leaders that nothing has changed in the past six decades in our area”, said Bakthi Begum, a resident of remote Haroo village of Bhaderwah.
A strong believer in democracy, Bakthi said that each time she goes to vote with a hope that the winning candidate would work for much-needed infrastructural development of the area but every time the candidate disappoints the people.
While pointing towards women standing in the queue waiting for their turn to cast vote, she said, “all these people want good roads, hospitals and other basic amenities besides job avenues for the unemployed youth of the area and I am hopeful that large participation of women would certainly give loud and clear message to those leaders, who believe in befooling the voters by making false promises”.
The centenarians like Bakthi Begum acted as brand ambassadors for the electorates particularly womenfolk as they kept on motivating the people of their respective areas to turnout in huge number to ensure proper nourishment of their area in particular and district in general.
According to the official sources, District Election Officer (DEO) Doda, Shyam Vinod Meena played key role in ensuring maximum participation by the women voters as he got EVM familiarization conducted at all the Anganwari centres across the district and utilized the services of Anganwari workers in motivating women voters to spare time in participating in electoral exercise.
The yearning for holistic development was equally at its peak among the special voters like dwarfs and deaf and dumb, who too participated in the electoral exercise in full strength. According to the official figures, almost all the special voters in both the constituencies exercised their franchise.
For these special voters, the District Election Officer had made special arrangements. According to the reports, almost all the voters of Dadkai, which is known as deaf and dumb village, participated in the electoral exercise.
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