: Only an elderly couple, relatives of General Bipin Rawat, lives in Sain, ancestral village of the first Chief of the Army Staff from the Garhwal region, in Pauri district of Uttarakhand.
In the middle of dilapidated houses and vast swathes of barren agricultural land, General Rawat’s paternal uncle Bharat Singh Rawat (66) and aunt Sushila Rawat (56) live in the ancestral home of the family. “Most people had to leave the village for work,” Mr. Bharat Rawat, an ex-serviceman, said.
The village is part of the Birmoli gram sabha from where high migration has been taking place for the past two decades. The Birmoli village head, Dharampal Singh Bisht, says the gram sabha has only 90 families now, down from the 250 it had 20 years ago.
“Schooling, medical facilities, employment, education, transportation — everything is a problem here. People are always looking for chances to shift out,” Mr. Bisht said.
Birmoli in the Yamkeshwar constituency has a majority of its 83,485 voters in the armed forces, especially the Army. Around 20% of the voters are ex-servicemen. RAW chief Anil Dhasmana and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval are also from Pauri region.
With Brahmins and Rajputs forming almost 90% of the voters and Muslims and Dalits the remaining 10%, Yamkeshwar, a BJP stronghold, voted Vijaya Barthwal of the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in the three Assembly elections that the State has witnessed.
This time. residents complain of the “bad choice” of candidates that the Congress and the BJP have made.
Ritu Khanduri Bhushan, daughter of the former Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri, is the BJP candidate. The Congress has fielded Shailendra Singh Rawat, who joined the party after being denied ticket by the BJP for the Kotdwar seat.
While Ms. Bhushan is new to politics and the region, Mr. Shailendra Rawat is making a shift from Kotdwar, where he has been working for the past five years.
“We have never seen her [Ms. Bhushan] and we are sceptical of whether she would ever visit our place or do any development works here if we vote for her,” Birendra Rawat of Birmoli said.
“If we vote for Shailendra Rawat, the only satisfaction will be that at least we will get to see him [since he is a resident of a place near Yamkeshwar]. But with Ms. Bhushan, that does not seem like a possibility,” Trilok Singh Gusain, also from Birmoli, said.
