No road, no vote: Ansulem villagers stick to their stand

By Afaq Khan

VALPOI: Villagers of Ansulem in Sattari refused to budge from their decision not to vote for the Lok Sabha polls on April 23 due to neglect of their village by the government. “No road, no vote,” they told North Goa collector R Menaka and her team, who visited the village on Friday and tried to convince them to change their minds.


TOI, in its edition dated April 7, was the first to report the boycott decision by Ansulem villagers.

They said the main road leading up to the village has been in a poor condition for a decade. There are no street lights, no proper drainage, and the village bridge is in bad shape and could collapse this monsoon.

Villagers said they had raised the bad road issue in the gram sabha for the past 10 years, but nobody was willing to take any action.

Menaka tried to convince locals that the process of laying the road has started and that PWD has prepared an estimate. “Since the model code of conduct is in place, no new work can start,” she said. “I tried to explain to the villagers that due to the code, it isn’t possible to start work immediately.”


North Goa collector R Menaka tried to convince the Ansulem residents to vote on April 23, saying the process of laying the road had started but the actual work cannot start due to the election code of conduct

‘We vote for them, give them power, luxury’

She said there’s a provision for emergent work, in which officials can inform a screening committee, which can recommend the work go on. She told villagers that she would inform this committee about this demand. But the villagers were not convinced.

Ansulem lies in Poriem constituency, which is represented by former chief minister and senior Congress leader Pratapsingh Rane. Villagers say there are over 100 houses and more than 200 voters. While deciding not to vote, villagers accused Rane and North Goa MP Shripad Naik of never visiting them.

Menaka and other officials explained to them the importance of casting their vote and also asked PWD officials to visit the village and explain the status of work.

In a similar call for electoral boycott by two wards of Cotigao wildlife sanctuary, a visit by state chief electoral officer Kunal led to the locals changing their mind and deciding to vote. A government statement said that the villagers were happy that Kunal visited them all the way from Panaji, and thus they changed their minds.

The team visiting Ansulem, however, had no such luck. Villagers asked officials to first start the work and only then would they vote.

“I feel very bad to see little children coming walking in the absence of transport in our village, which is grossly neglected by the government,” said senior citizen Annapurna Gawas. “During monsoon, the road is submerged and children have to risk their life. Do only people living in towns matter?”

Villagers were also peeved because they were informed that Menaka and her team would visit Ansulem on Thursday. They waited a long time for the collector, but she and her team failed to turn up, instead showing up on Friday.

Another local, Kasturi Desai, said, “Ministers and MLAs live luxurious lives and don’t bother to understand the struggles we face. Like fools, we go out and vote for them, giving them power and luxury.”

Altaf Vasta, another local, said although the collector has assured villagers that the file pertaining to building of the road will be processed, “I don’t have any hope that the road work will start, and we have decided not to cast our votes if the road work is not started”.

Devidas Desai said in the past, the government had built roads even for single houses at some place. “Here in our village, there are hundreds of people residing and we aren’t getting a road, it’s a shame”.

One villager told TOI that when he reaches home from duty at night, he sometimes feels scared to enter his own village in the dark due to lack of streetlights. He also challenged officials to visit him at his home with the files.