BIJNOR: Neglected for 19 years, residents of 185 Bijnor villages bordering Uttarakhand have now pinned their hopes on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls . For these villages, located on the fringes of UP, Kotdwar district of Uttarakhand is just four km away while their official headquarters in Bijnor is over 60 km far. Upset with almost “absent” development, over 2 lakh people want merger of their 185 villages into Uttarakhand.

According to villagers, successive governments have failed to pay attention to their plight ever since the hill state of Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000. The villagers had high hopes after Yogi Adityanath took over the reins of UP. Since BJP was in the power both in the state and at the Centre they excepted a decision will be made in their favour.

Seemavarti Sangharsh Samiti, an outfit dedicated for the merger of the UP’s 185 villages with the hill state has now said that they will vote for the party which will fulfil their demand of merger.

“We have started a campaign wherein all the villagers will be contacted and asked to vote only for the party which agrees to our Uttarakhand-merger demand,” said Manmohan Duddhpuri, who is heading the samiti.

It is the only poll issue of around 2 lakh people residing in these villages. As poll draw closer, the demands of the people from these 185 villages start getting louder. The villagers say that due to their border location in UP, development has not reached them. Most of these villages don’t have any industries, colleges or hospital.

Talking to TOI, convener of the committee, Duddhpuri, said: “We had formed a committee soon after Uttarakhand carved out of UP in 2000. Since then, we have been demanding inclusion of bordering village in the hill state. It has become a never ending poll issue. During the polls, all politicians visited bordering villages and assure us that they would address our problem. But when the polls are over, winners vanish from the scene.”

“BJP has done nothing so far. Now we have decided to hold a meeting after the festival of Holi. We will support the party which will raise our grievances in both Assembly and Parliament,” he said.

