A polling station at Ambivili Municipal School in Kalyan remained silent on Tuesday with polling officers waiting for voters to arrive. However, voters continued with their chores avoiding the potholed lane leading to the municipal school as part of their unique protest. Result: a zero per cent voter turnout at their polling station.

“We don’t know the names of candidates contesting from the Kalyan (west) constituency. Not a single candidate has visited our village for campaigning. We have been suffering and will continue to suffer, but no one will ever come to our rescue,” said Madhukar Bhoir, a farmer who has participated in a demonstration recently to demand uninterrupted water supply in his village.

Villagers of Ambivili along with two other adjoining villages— Balyani and Moeili— around 55 km from Mumbai, have boycotted six consecutive elections, demanding basic amenities like uniterrupted water supply, electricity and health provisions. Around 9000-odd voters, primarily Adivasis, Dalits and a few Muslims, have boycotted two Lok Sabha elections, a by-poll, a municipal election and an Assembly election so far. “We are not non-believers of democracy. We have been agitating since 2004 with the hope that one day an ashamed MLA or an MP will turn to our demands and also treat us on par with the main town of Kalyan Dombivili, which has seen many development projects in the past decade,” said Sanjay Mhatre, convener of the Sarvapakhsha Gram Vikas Sangharsh Samiti.

“My village has been a part of the Kalyan- Dombivili Municipal Corporation for 27 years. While people of Kalyan city enjoy new roads and health facilities, we still travel for over two kilometres to fetch water. The tank that was set up in 2004 runs dry. We suffer power cut for over 14 hours every day,” said Alka Mhatre, an adivasi woman from Balyani, who has a voter card, but has not cast a vote ever since she came to the village after her marriage.

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