The only regular visitors to these tiny manmade islands on the Kadana reservoir located in Panchmahals district are five schoolteachers. They usually reach at 11 am at the little islet of Rachhada Bet to teach 50 students at the small primary school on the island, that has no electricity or water supply. However, this year election officials will make a foray into the region — for the first time since Independence.

Rachhada Bet, with a population of 400 voters, would be seeing not just an EVM but a polling booth for the first time in its history. The polling booth here, at Rachhada Prathamik Shala, which has come up for the first time after the adjoining areas in Kadana were submerged during the damming of the Mahi River 30 years ago, would run on a portable generator used by the Deputy Sarpanch of the village, Jetha Vaghdia.

While this dam is irrigated and powered largely by the Central Gujarat region, in its immediate vicinity the tribals are bereft of both its water and power generated from it. The northern flank of the reservoir with these islets, which became a part of the Dahod Lok Sabha Constituency after delimitation, is reserved for tribals. However, the tribals have not been given ST certificates for the past year, as they were not enlisted before 1962, says Dr Harshad Maliwad of the Adivasi Sangharsh Samiti. Dahod, incidentally, ranks as one of the 100 most backward districts of India

The placid waters of Kadana reservoir surrounding Rachhada polling booth will have 2,000 voters from these manmade islets such as Chondri Bet, Kharod Bet, Nani Rachhada and Kaliyari Bet. But the largest one is Rachhada Bet, where around 137 families reside. The District Collector of Dahod and overall in-charge of Lok Sabha elections, R M Jadhav, confirmed, “Election officials would be taken by boat for poll duty”.

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