BHOPAL: Trouble is brewing for the BJP in 35 villages of drought-hit Sheopur district in Madhya Pradesh where one lakh people have decided not to cast their vote in the 2018 state assembly elections, if they don’t get water from the Chambal canal.Slogans like “No canal-no vote” have been written on the walls in all the 35 villages dominated by the Meena and Jat communities.“More than 20,000 hectares of land are not cultivated because there is no water. If the canal water doesn’t reach the villages, 10-20 farmers may even commit suicide,” said Yaduraj Singh, an advocate and district president of legal cell of the BJP. He is also a farmer.“I am going to resign from the party post during state BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan’s visit on January 1,” he said.Starting an agitation, over 500 farmers are staging dharna every day at Sheopur in support of their demand.Kisan Sangharsh Morcha president Omprakash Meena said, “We have given an ultimatum to the government to meet our demand within seven days beginning December 15. If the government doesn’t respond, we will paralyse the Sheopur city and our families will hold dharna at the district collector office.”“The agitating farmers are demanding construction of a minor canal from the Maharana Pratap Sagar dam canal network,” Yaduraj Singh said. The dam, constructed on Chambal river, reaches Sheopur much before it flows down to Bhind and Morena. But farmers in the 35 villages are not benefited, he said.Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, in the presence of local BJP MLA Durgalal Vijay in a meeting with a group of local villagers, had promised dam waters, but he seems to have forgotten the promise made by him, the agitating farmers said.The farmers have threatened to “cut the main canal to access water”, if a minor canal is not constructed for them.