Seated in front of the anganwadi centre at Thoomanur tribal settlement, 70- year-old S Mariammal says she was one of the first ones to cast the vote in her village. "We voted before 8 am,'' she said. This is the first time since independence that villagers of Thoomanur and Sembukkarai, tribal hamlets in the Western Ghats, got to exercise their franchise in their native place. All these years they had to trek for more than an hour to vote in Anaikatti downhill, which left many elderly choosing to stay away from voting rather than toiling. But this time more than 80% had voted by 3 pm.
"We used to trek to Anaikatti downhill from Thoomanur village through reserve forest to cast our votes, 10 years ago. Many of the elderly people could not trek in the forest. A few of them used to take the cattle for grazing and returned home in late evening only. So, they failed to cast their votes in 2006 and 2011 assembly elections. For the first time, our village has a polling station and our people cast their votes in our own village," said Mariammal.
The tribal people had been residing in huts till 1975. During the MGR period, they got tiled houses for which the elderly of the settlements are still thankful to him. There are more than 100 families in the two hamlets but there is no electricity or transport facilities.
The two tribal settlements have 366 voters --178 male and 188 female. The village has recorded 82.24% of votes on Monday.
P Nanjan, 50, from Thoomanur said that political parties sent mini trucks to the tribal village to pick up the voters in 2011. The people were waiting for more than three hours in the polling stations at Anaikatti to catch the return vehicle. "Only now has the state government started focusing on us. We are very happy that we got to vote in our village. We are having a few solar street lights and most of the lights are not functioning. So, the government should give electricity connection to us," said Nanjan.
The polling station was located near the Tamil Nadu -Kerala forest border and it was a vulnerable polling station. So, four paramilitary personnel and three local police were deployed in the polling booth.
"We used to trek to Anaikatti downhill from Thoomanur village through reserve forest to cast our votes, 10 years ago. Many of the elderly people could not trek in the forest. A few of them used to take the cattle for grazing and returned home in late evening only. So, they failed to cast their votes in 2006 and 2011 assembly elections. For the first time, our village has a polling station and our people cast their votes in our own village," said Mariammal.
The tribal people had been residing in huts till 1975. During the MGR period, they got tiled houses for which the elderly of the settlements are still thankful to him. There are more than 100 families in the two hamlets but there is no electricity or transport facilities.
The two tribal settlements have 366 voters --178 male and 188 female. The village has recorded 82.24% of votes on Monday.
P Nanjan, 50, from Thoomanur said that political parties sent mini trucks to the tribal village to pick up the voters in 2011. The people were waiting for more than three hours in the polling stations at Anaikatti to catch the return vehicle. "Only now has the state government started focusing on us. We are very happy that we got to vote in our village. We are having a few solar street lights and most of the lights are not functioning. So, the government should give electricity connection to us," said Nanjan.
The polling station was located near the Tamil Nadu -Kerala forest border and it was a vulnerable polling station. So, four paramilitary personnel and three local police were deployed in the polling booth.