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When a village voted for change

Winds of change were blowing on Thursday in the small village of Ladpur in North West Delhi. Villagers, who boycotted polling during the last assembly and previous Lok Sabha elections, participated in the exercise with much enthusiasm.

When asked why they had chosen to vote this time discarding the boycott they themselves had implemented, Makhan Lal, a resident of the village, said, ‘We are tired of the current crop of political leaders. They have not done anything for us. The condition of our village has only deteriorated. There is no water and electricity and you will find dead animals on the streets. We are really distressed and now we finally see a hope for a better future. This is the sole reason why we have voted this time. We expect a bright future for the village in the coming time.’

While residents of Ladpur raised a pleasant wave of change, the people in North-West Delhi got a chance to see another of its intriguing facets when a group of rural women in Pooth Kala village marched to a nearby government school to vote. They were rejoicing and singing traditional folk songs to celebrate the electoral process. The villagers say it has always been a tradition in this village to sing folk songs during the elections to mark the change that is coming in. Kamla Devi, who has been participating in this tradition for several years, said: ‘The elections are like a ceremonial event for us. We like celebrating it with a little song and dance. This election especially holds an important significance for us because I think a new government will see things from our prospective and will remove the corruption which is eating our country from within.’

The total number of voters in this constituency are 20,93,922 with a participation of 11,56,697 males and 93,707 females while the polling percentage stood at 61.2. In the last Lok Sabha election in 2009, Indian National Congress’ Krishna Tirath had won with 4,87,404 votes from this constituency.
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