'Where will we go now, our shelter has been snatched away': 'If inflation is rising, what will we do for our women', say Ward-1 residents 'We will vote for those who will do good work'

As the upcoming local body elections of Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation are echoing, there is a lot of anger among the locals in Ward No. 1 (Chitra-Fulsar-Nari) due to lack of basic facilities. The ground report by Divya Bhaskar has found that voters are suffering from problems of sanitation, sewerage, water and housing created after demolition, while representatives of the BJP and Congress are busy making claims and allegations of development. 'If you solve the problem, you will vote, you will not give up' Asmitaben, a local resident, said that the water comes regularly, but there is a lot of smell of sewage in it. Which makes our children sick. Everyone comes from time to time when they want to vote for us, but now no one thinks whether to vote for us or not. We will vote for the one who will solve all the problems, otherwise we do not want to vote for anyone. 'There is no sewer line or any facility' Kanchanben Kantolia, a local resident, said, "We don't have a sewer line in Kangsia area, we don't have any facilities and if we want to bring any big vehicle, we have a lot of difficulty. If there is work in a hospital, even an ambulance cannot come. We pay taxes regularly. Even if we vote, nothing works. If someone does a good job, we vote for him. If we live at a high altitude, there are no facilities there. 'Clean up as long as you need votes' Bhavnaben, a local woman, said, "There is no cleaning in our area and no garbage seller comes. Whenever you want votes, all the bosses come running. Why do we have to vote? If you don't get cleaned, why do you have to do all this? As long as you see the votes, there will be cleaning. If inflation is rising, what will we women have to die? They take their votes and then they don't even blink. This time, we have to vote for the one who will do something good, but we don't have to look at anyone else. '82 houses were demolished, our shelter was taken away' Balabhai Bharwad, a resident of Phulsar, said, "We are BJP workers in 82 houses. We followed him three or four times. He said nothing would happen to your city. Now we stood by them. When they came to demolish our 82 houses, no one gave us shelter and destroyed all our belongings. Now we don't have any shelter to stay. So where do we have to go now? Not a single BJP worker has come on this day. He said to the person he was chasing, "No, nothing will happen. 'We will bring those who work for the poor' He came at 7 a.m. and turned the bulldozer. So where did we have to go, we built 82 houses and 22 houses near the temple of Meldi Mataji. So we are all helpless. No one has any recourse. We want to hire people who will do the work of the poor man. Otherwise, such a lukha lafunga is of no use. And don't you come here for votes? We don't need you, you haven't done anything for us. We are destitute right now. 'No one to be seen after the election' Kaushik Prajapati said, "At present, there are many anganwadis in Phulsar. But now, there is an anganwadi in Madhuvan Society, Khara area, Radhakrishna Society and Karamachari Nagar. There are so many boys inside, but they can't even sit properly in this one room. We have made repeated representations but there is no solution. Now we think that we are sitting on the chair after voting, but now it is of no use, so who should we vote for? "After being elected, no one sees anything here and no one recommends anything," he said. 'Tankers have to be ordered even if there is a new water tank' Congress candidate Kanti Chauhan has accused the ruling party of having a policy of 'wala-dawla'. He said that the cleanliness drive and the arrangement of temple bells are irregular, due to which there are piles of garbage. Despite the new water tanks, people have to put in motors or call for tankers. Let's call it 'development', 'vikas', let's see what kind of development there is in Chitra Phulsar. Roads are not the means of development, development is true if the common man gives livelihood to the poor. We will solve this problem 100 per cent. For 30-30 years, I have only made promises: Kanti Chauhan "People trust us and our panel will win, we will give 100 per cent assurance to the people and get the job done," Chauhan said. And these people have been making promises for the last 30 years, but they have not been able to fulfil those promises. And they make announcements worth crores of rupees that they will do this much work only when elections come. The foundation stones of roads are laid immediately, are they not done earlier? 'Works worth more than Rs 200 crore done in 5 years' Former BJP corporator Upendrasinh Chudasama said that works worth more than Rs 200 crore have been done in the area in the last five years. He claimed to have created four new water sources claiming that the water system has improved. He hit back at the Congress corporator for misusing the grant only to put up benches and cages. Go to any society and tell me what the Bharatiya Janata Party has done here. If you are counted as at least one or more than three jobs from the society. You can interview in any society. Where did he use the grant in five years? In public participation, we get a grant of Rs 30 lakh every year, which means a grant of Rs 1.5 crore for five years. We have done works worth 8 to 9 crore rupees with public participation. 'No one has been made homeless' Upendrasinh Chudasama further said that houses have been demolished, people have been rendered homeless. So I want to tell Kantibhai that those who had a house in the city were given a house for just 1 lakh rupees. This is the only place in the entire Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation where demolition has taken place where no one has been made homeless. They were on the road to the government. When it is very important to build roads, they have been given housing facilities for just Rs 1 lakh (housing) and those who could not even reach Rs 1 lakh, they have been given a loan of Rs 1 lakh by a bank or other institution.