Here, conducting elections is literally an uphill task

PUNE: The primary village school in which Arvind Shinde teaches is a dilapidated structure with a tin roof and no washroom. On Tuesday, it doubled up as the lone polling booth in the village for the Lok Sabha elections with Shinde as its booth level officer. It’s an election responsibility that has been wholly entrusted to Shinde — let alone no polling agent coming to check the EVM here, even the candidates contesting the polls don’t campaign here.
That’s perhaps because reaching Raireshwar fort in Bhor taluka, which is famous since the times of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, is an exhausting uphill journey. Located 4,589 feet above sea level, the fort and its surroundings host a temple and some houses besides the school.
Of the 550-odd people who live at the top, 161 are eligible to vote and 97 exercised their franchise on Tuesday. Raireshwar is 80km from Pune and falls in the Baramati constituency where NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule is contesting the elections.
With a road that has been under construction for the past four decades, the villagers have lost all hope of it ever getting completed. The closest a state transport bus can reach is at least 2.5 hours away, while the nearest motorable road is 1-1.5 hours away. After walking for 15 minutes, one has to climb the steep steps going up the hill and then walk another 20 minutes to reach the village It takes more than an hour to trek from the base to the polling booth.
“We carried the entire election setup here. The village has electricity and round-the-year water supply thanks to a natural spring. The 45-odd homes all have toilets. But there is no way a vehicle can reach here because of the terrain. The ailing are taken down the hill to hospital on cloth stretchers,” Shinde says.
Villager Gopal Jangam says the road work commenced in 1972 but nothing came of it. “We have to travel more than threeand-a-half hours to get our rations. All we want from the government is a road. Sule had come to the village by helicopter last year and promised us a road, but nothing happened after that,” he laments.
Like the many forts dotting Maharashtra, Raireshwar is a trekkers’ delight. The state government sanctioned Rs 6.5 crore last year for the renovation of three forts in Pune district, including Raireshwar, and the villagers are now hoping for some facilities.
The school, which has been conducting classes for 15 years, was built by the villagers as a community hall initially. The roof leaks during the monsoon.
Yogendra Jangam (17), a 10th standard student, walks for around two hours while going to the nearest high school in neighbouring Wai. “There is no other way,” he says.
Archana Gaikwad, the lone woman police naik accompanying the polling officials, came to the village on Monday from her posting in Lonavla , leaving behind her two boys aged 2 and 4 with her mother. “I have never seen such an inaccessible place in my 12 years of service,” she said.
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