Villagers of Siswa Basantpur Panchayat of Bagaha-1 block boycotted the vote.

West Champaran (Bagaha), May 23 (HS). Voters of four wards of Basantpur village of Siswa Basantpur Panchayat of Bagaha Block 1 protested on Thursday by deciding to boycott the vote in the Lok Sabha elections alleging lack of development.

Villagers say that 2500 voters of booth number 270 and 271 in the above mentioned four wards have decided to boycott the great festival of democracy. Extensive propaganda is being done through tempos in the four wards of Basantpur village to boycott the elections.

Hundreds of people including Mazhar Alam, Santosh Prasad, Mustaq Ahmed, Emamullah, Mohd Imran, Nandkishore Prasad, Rajneesh Kesari, Tarachand Prasad, Dinanath Thakur, Mohd Arshad, Jamiruddin, who were boycotting the voting, said that even after years of independence, four wards of Basantpur village are deprived of development plans. The problem of movement has increased a lot due to waterlogging on the road.

He told that applications were given twice to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for construction of pool in Masan river. Also, demands were made to the local MP and regional MLA for construction of pool in Masan river, construction of road from Basantpur Chowk to Sirkahiya Chowk, construction of health centre, drain, but only assurance was given by the public representatives. The people of the said four wards also accused the Panchayat head of neglecting them in the name of development.

The protesters said that due to floods in the Masan river, the road to Ramnagar via Telpul village is closed for four months. They are forced to travel a distance of 40 km instead of 14 km to go to Ramnagar market. They said that even though the government is making a lot of noise about development schemes in Bihar, but four wards of Basantpur village are still untouched by development works. Where they are deprived of roads, health, drain construction as well as all the welfare and ambitious schemes of the government. He said that raising the slogan 'No development in all the four wards, then no vote', they decided to boycott the Lok Sabha elections.