Bihar polls: Flooded roads, 20-year wait for booth to return to village as voters bat for democracy

Darbhanga/Munger, Nov 6 (PTI) Far from the election campaigns and high-decibel claims of political parties, the first phase of Bihar polls on Thursday captured both the grit of voters and the gaps that successive governments have failed to plug.

In Darbhanga's Kusheshwar Asthan constituency, voters braved flooded roads and difficult terrains to cast their votes, many with their children in tow.

"What is this? This is water! If someone breaks a leg or gets hurt, who will accept the responsibility?" an agitated voter told PTI Video.

"People fall, get injured, and yet nothing is done. There's no arrangement for drainage. They come asking for votes first, but when will they be ready to fix the roads?," he asked.

Residents claimed that bricks had been hurriedly placed just a day earlier to create a semblance of a pathway.

"When they needed votes, they laid these bricks here. Otherwise, people used to wade through water to reach here," remarked another elector in Bhojpuri.

Behind the frustration lies a deeper pain: the story of migration, running like a fault line through the region. Entire villages depend on sons working in Delhi, Punjab or beyond.

"There are a lot of problems. Our sons go to Delhi and Punjab to work, and there is no one who cares. If the government provided some employment here, they would stay here in the village," said a voter.

"We have no income, not a single bigha. Whether we stay here or go outside, there is nothing to eat. What can we do? If the government created jobs, our children would remain here." But while some voters battled floods, others celebrated the end of a long wait.

In Munger's Bhimbandh, part of the Naxal-hit Tarapur seat, residents queued up with visible relief and excitement as a polling booth had finally returned to their village after 20 years.

The booth, officials said, was shifted elsewhere after a deadly 2005 incident in which seven police personnel were killed. Security concerns and the surrounding forest terrain kept the voting centre away for two decades.

"In 2005, we heard an incident took place in Tarapur where seven police personnel were killed. Since then, voting here had stalled. The voting arrangements were made somewhere else. This time, the arrangements here are good. CRPF personnel are alert, patrolling has been organised, and voting is peaceful. There are 374 voters here," senior magistrate Ashok Kumar told reporters.

For elderly voter Vishnu Dev Singh, it was a moment heavy with memory.

"I had voted here in 2005 or before that. After that, for 20 years, we used to vote at a booth outside the village because of forest and Naxal problem. Today, it feels good to vote again here in my village," he told PTI.

Women in the village recalled the hardship of the earlier trek.

"When I was working, I had to cross the forest to go and vote in Gaighat. It was very difficult. We had to take a vehicle for a certain distance and walk the rest," said Neelam Devi. "This time, the booth is closer, and the arrangements are good." As political parties spar over development claims and accuse each other of neglect, the images from the ground in Phase 1 of polls — drenched slippers, makeshift brick pathways, security personnel posted deep inside forests — offer a reminder that the stakes for ordinary citizens remain far more fundamental: roads, safety, work, and the basic dignity that comes with being heard. PTI CORR PNT MNB