Villagers protest against insufficient water supply, boycott Lok Sabha bypoll in Karnataka’s Ballari

Protests marred voting at Haraginadoni village in Ballari as women staged a demonstration holding empty pots and boycotted the Lok Sabha by-elections Saturday.

The villagers were protesting the lack of water supply in their village.

The district administration had arranged water supply through tankers but that was not sufficient to meet the day-to-day requirements, they said.

“Most borewells in our village have gone dry. Those which are functional have high fluoride content, which is not potable,” an agitating villager told reporters.

The villagers had been cautioning the district authorities for the past three-four days that unless their water requirements were met, they would not vote.

However, their warnings were not taken seriously and Saturday morning, hundreds of women holding empty pitchers staged a demonstration.

The bypolls in Ballari is taking place following the resignation of sitting BJP MP B Sriramulu afterhe won the assembly election from Monakalmuru.

Sriramulu’s sister J Shantha got the BJP ticket while V SUgrappa is contesting as a Congress candidate backed by JD(S).

According to information received, there are 17.13 lakh voters in the Lok Sabha constituency while Haraginadoni village has about 2,000 voters.