About 5,000 villagers from T Edaipalayam threatened to boycott the Lok Sabha election on Friday opposing the authorities for not providing the basic amenities.
In a bid to show their resentmen, the villagers also erected a digital banner in their village on Friday. Samsudeen (65), village panchayat chairman of T Edaipalayam said, “For the last 20 years we have been demanding that our village be treated as a separate revenue panchayat. As it was ignored, we decided to boycott the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.”
They later called off the boycott after assurances that their demand would be looked into. All of them turned out to be empty promises. “This time we decided to hand over all the government Ids to the district administration,” he said.
Explaining the hardship faced by the villagers Syed Karim of T Edaipalayam village said, “over 5,000 live in this village and more than 2,500 have voter id cards. We are being used as voting machines by politicians only to accumulate votes. Even basic facilities, including proper road and drinking water have not been upgraded.
The villagers said they had been fighting to get basic amenities for the past two decades. “We had forwarded several petitions to the district administration but there has been no forward movement.” RDO officials tried to pacify the residents, who remained unrelenting.