500 Mothakkal villagers in Tamil Nadu abstain from voting in the Lok Sabha

For the last three weeks, the objections of more than a thousand Adi Dravidars living in Mothakkal, Thandrampet Taluk, have been expressed via a banner at the village gate and protest flags in front of each of their 200 homes. Approximately 500 Dalit electors who are eligible to vote on Friday abstained from the Lok Sabha elections because their long-standing demands remain unfulfilled.

A villager said that despite their attempts to demonstrate their disapproval, no official had contacted them, and that all of the political changes over the previous 70 years had been of no value to them. The peasants had petitioned the tahsildar, sub-inspector, and collector with sixteen complaints.

A communal cemetery for the Adi Dravidar group was central to their demands, since they claimed to be subjected to discrimination and refused access to roads leading to burial sites by the panchayat president and numerous Hindus from the caste Hindus. There is still no public restroom in the panchayat, despite a ten-year commitment that the president of the panchayat is believed to have disregarded, according to one Mariyappan. They also looked for more property so they could build real roads with lamps and buildings.