While scores of tribals from Palghar, one of the parched districts in Maharashtra, were busy casting their votes, over 50 women and children were struggling to fetch water from a dry well, which was filled with a water tanker at Kundacha Pada village near Jawahar town on Monday.
“I will not vote. What is the use of voting when it can’t even fetch a bucket full of clean water to my house,” asked Gadri Janu Doba, a woman, while drawing water from the well to fill the plastic bottles she had carried.
The water tanker that arrived in the village after two days, was emptied into the well. Suddenly, hundreds of women crowded around the well with their empty buckets. Everyone tried to get as much water as possible to last till the tanker comes to the village again.
Priority: Women of Kundacha Pada village filling their buckets from a well on Monday.
Only five km from Jawahar, villagers of Kundacha Pada had not cast their votes till late afternoon. “The wells in the village have gone dry. How can going to cast vote be our priority when the water tanker has finally arrived? Only the people who face acute water conditions know the value of a glass of clean drinking water,” Yamuna Doba, another woman from the village, said.
Kausala Karar, a Class II student, said the tanker comes to the village about two-three times a week though there are no fixed timings. “Vacation is a good time for my family as I get to assist my mother in carrying water to our home and then we have a little more water to use,” the seven-year-old girl said.
Themi Vamre, a home maker, said a few years ago, the village didn’t get water through tankers. “We went to the office in Jawahar town and fought with officers. Then they started sending water tankers during summers,” she said. Ms. Vamre said on several occasions, they run out of water and have to go six km on foot to get a few litres of water from the neighbouring village.
Yashwanti Bachuwali, who had come to the well with her eight-year-old daughter, said the villagers will exercise their franchise only after they have drawn the last bucket of water from the well. “We have been voting for the last several years, but nothing has changed. We cast votes for the sake of it as we know it doesn’t change anything. But one bucket full of water makes a huge difference to our lives,” she said.
Jaini Javladhikar (70) said the polling booth was about one km from their village. “Our villagers are convinced that casting vote is futile. Politicians say voting will get water to our village but after several decades of voting, we know they are all liars,” she said.
However, later in the afternoon, many villagers decided to cast their votes, but only after they had stocked water.
