The second phase of polling in Gujarat on Monday was marked by boycott calls in several villages in north and central districts.
At Undhela village in Kheda, people from the minority community boycotted the voting. This is the village where some Muslims were publicly flogged by the police after allegedly throwing stones at a Navratri Garba event in October this year.
In Mehsana, voters in four villages said they were boycotting the Assembly polls due to lack of development in their villages and nearby areas. They also complained of bad roads and water shortage.
For the third year in a row, villagers from Varetha, Dalisana and Davol in Kheralu taluka of Mehsana refrained from exercising their franchise in protest against water shortage. The residents of the these three villages had not cast their votes during the taluka, district, and village panchayat polls held earlier.
The villagers said that though they have been demanding the Narmada water to fill the village lakes, the State authorities have yet to provide water from the Narmada canal.
According to officials in Mehsana, nearly 5,200 eligible voters in the district refrained from exercising their franchise.
Though District Collector Udit Aggarwal had visited the villages a month ago assuring that their demands would be considered positively by the administration, the villagers remained did not budge from their call to boycott the poll. Meanwhile at Becharaji in the district, residents of Beriyaf village also joined the boycott initially before calling it off after local officials intervened. Later, around 50% of the voters there cast their vote in the afternoon.
