ONGOLE: Residents of Narisettyvaripalem of Kandukur mandal have decided to boycott the gram panchayat elections yet again to register their protest against the ‘failure’ of the district administration in resolving their land issues. After the locals boycotted the elections to the village posts scheduled on February 17, authorities had issued a notification to conduct the polls again on March 15.
No candidate filed nomination papers for the sarpanch and ward member posts despite their political affiliations. On Saturday, the village elders conducted a meeting and reiterated their decision to boycott the elections. Returning officer and mandal parishad development officer Vijaya Sekhar said the villagers of Narisettyvaripalem had decided to give the poll procedure a skip for the second time in a row, and that no candidate filed papers. “Higher authorities have already been informed. Further steps will be taken as per the election authorities’ instructions.”
“We boycotted the election procedure once to register our agony as the officials and public representatives have failed to solve our decades-long problems. In such circumstances, we don’t have any choice but to boycott the elections once again as we believe the strategy will resolve our problems,” N Srinivas, a local, said.
Narisettyvaripalem in Prakasam district is home to 1,300 people, 572 of whom are voters. In a memorandum submitted to the district collector recently, the residents had said 1,000 acres of agriculture land in the village are notified in five other village limits as Narisettyvaripalem is not a revenue village. The agricultural lands are notified in the revenue records of Kandukur, Kondi kandukur, Jillellamudi, Kovur and Gadepallivari Kandrika (Jarugumalli mandal). As such, farmers of these lands are being subjected to difficulties in getting seeds, fertiliser, pesticides and even the (MSP) for paddy, cotton and other crops.