Tamil Nadu’s Avalur villagers boycott votes, claiming that their desire for a new overbridge is unfulfilled

Over 1,200 voters from Avalur in Ranipet abstained from voting on Friday, citing their unfulfilled four-year demand and lack of confidence from authorities over the construction of a new overbridge on the Chennai-Bangalore National Highway close to their hamlet.

Since the villagers mostly rely on traveling to Panapakkam on the other side of the highway for their access to healthcare, education, and livelihood, it has been stated that they have had many accidents.

P Jayamalini, an 18-year-old first-time voter, decided to support her fellow villagers’ boycott, noting the daily struggles her community faces as a result of the absence of an overbridge that would allow them to cross the highway securely. She lost her mother in the same traffic tragedy in 2017. Days before the polls, she said, the villages announced their boycott, but no official contacted them.

Two overbridges were built at Perumpullipakkam and Kalathur, 1.5 km from the hamlet, however the locals complained that Avalur is always ignored. On election day, at around 1:00 pm, a 34-year-old man named V Silambarasan remarked, “We are ready to vote if any official approaches us now and assures that steps will be taken to initiate the construction.”

After speaking with the locals and outlining their constitutional rights many times, the Nemili tahsildar did not provide them any assurances. This encounter caused the villagers to flee the polling place without casting their ballots. R Parvathi, the 52-year-old president of Avalur Panchayat, said that the villagers chose to abstain from voting on their own initiative and that no one else forced them to do so.

There were 1,279 eligible voters, including 26 villagers who were voting for the first time, but just 35 votes—including those of the 11 employees assigned to poll duty—were cast at the aforementioned polling place.

A government official, who wished to remain anonymous, said TNIE that they were unable to provide any guarantees about the overbridge construction since the matter comes within the purview of the NHAI and that only the relevant member of parliament or the NHAI is qualified to handle it.

Additionally, a second polling station was assigned to the Avalur Colony, which had 533 electors, and voting took place there without any problems.