As Dhanbad votes today in high-voltage clash, why many have decided to boycott the elections

As the Lok Sabha election season rolls towards its denouement, a group of villagers in Gopinathpur, more than 60 km from Dhanbad city in Jharkhand, are busy discussing what led them to issue a call to boycott the polls. Lack of clean drinking water, they say in unison.

For a village surrounded by four collieries, constant mining has led to the depletion of groundwater and despite having a solar-operated water pump there is no water to pump. The piped water supply also does not reach the majority of the 5,500 residents of the village. The village’s deputy mukhiya, Vishwanath Bawri, says the village depends on an abandoned mine more than a kilometre away to meet its drinking water needs. “It is extremely dangerous and the water is also not clean, but we have no other option. Despite several requests, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. We are not voting this time,” Bawri says, adding that villagers have informed the local Egarkund Block Development Officer about their issues and decision to boycott the election.

Gopinathpur is not an isolated case. In the Dhanbad Lok Sabha constituency that votes on Saturday, at least a dozen villages spread across the seat have issued poll boycott calls to attract the attention of administrators and politicians to their problems — from a lack of drinking water and roads to problems with rehabilitation connected to development projects.

Dhanbad is witnessing a high-pitched battle between the Dhulu Mahato of the BJP, which has replaced three-time MP Pashupati Nath Singh who won by 4.86 lakh votes in 2019, and the Congress’s Anupama Singh. Though villagers spread across the constituency are talking about not voting, Jharkhand’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K Ravi Kumar tells The Indian