Basic Facilities Have Been Denied To 100-Odd Families In Wayanad's Chettiyalathur Village Kozhikode: For the residents of Chettiyalathur village in Wayanad, voting has remained a valuable right even if they have not received anything much in return over six decades since independence. Electricity, roads, hospital, telephone or even newspapers, name any basic facility and the village, situated deep inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) in Noolpuzha panchayat, has none of them. Still, the around 100 families in the village will silently queue up at Polling Booth No 83 at the LP school on Thursday to cast their votes, rejecting the poll boycott protest initially mooted by some of its residents. The plight of families, who had even voluntarily offered to leave their ancestral land and move out of the WWS for the protection of the fragile forests, offers yet another electoral lesson—that it’s the voice of the vote banks that often matter in electoral politics. While this election season saw the government bending over backwards to allay the perceived anxieties of powerful vote banks in the hilly regions over Gadgil and Kasturirangan reports, the decades-long demand of these villagers for even rudimentary facilities remain unaddressed. “There won’t be another village like this anywhere in the state. None of the around 100 households have electricity, and we can’t step out of our homes once it is dark as wildlife abounds in the sanctuary. The only three-kmlong forest road leading to the village is kept under lock and chain by the forest department at night leaving us virtually trapped inside the forest. Also, we have to travel 16km to reach the nearest hospital in case of an emergency,” said Babu M, one of the villagers. But none of this has shaken the faith of villagers in democracy and their resolve to use their ballot to voice their mandate. “Though many posters had come up in the village, pointedly asking residents what they have received by exercising their franchise all these years, we will not boycott the election. We know we have been sidelined for generations, but I think it is wrong to waste the vote,” he said. Local ward member Sindhu K M said that it was the objection raised by forest officials for carrying out any development projects inside the enclosed village that have badly affected the entire development work in the village. “Though the government has released funds for the electrification of the village, forest officials have opposed drawing electric lines. The lone forest road, which is the only way to access the village, is also locked up after dark. Many villagers had opted to move out of the sanctuary for green cause under the voluntary relocation scheme launched in 2010. But even that project failed to take off due to lack of funds,” she said. Sreedharan T V (58), another resident, said that though there was resentment among the people of the village, ballot and not boycott was still the most powerful tool available to them. “We have not been able to make our voices heard yet. But the boycott of polls is not an answer as it would isolate us further in our democratic system,” he said