Election aura fails to attract farmers in Myagdi

KATHMANDU: APRIL. 18 – With three weeks left for voting in the local level election, party campaigners have intensified election preparations here. The leaders and cadres have been reaching every doorstep and wooing the voters.

The villagers here are however busy in harvesting wheat, sowing corn and planting vegetables. A paucity of irrigation is a worrying concern for them.

They have no time to engage in political campaigns and participate in political debates. Rather, they are dogged with the problems of irrigation, chemical fertilizers, seeds, clean drinking water etc. “Political leaders visit us during the election and assure of many things, but do not deliver as promised and our problems persist,” Dil Bahadur Sapkota from Torakhet of Beni Municipality-3 shared the plight.

Sapkota who was threshing wheat expressed worry about why the agriculture sector was not developed through roadway and communication saw relative progress.

“Now, there is three tiers of government. Why does the local government fail to become the government of farmers? We’re desperately waiting for facilities of irrigation, fertilizers, improved seeds and compensation for the loss of crops by the hailstone and floods. So, the election aura does not attract us,” he explained.

There is one municipality and five rural municipalities in the Myagdi district while the number of wards stands at 45. Except for Ward No 7 and 8 of Beni Municipality, other local levels are rural ones. Ninety percent of the voters here are farmers from rural areas and associated to agriculture.

Farmers’ apathy to the political campaigning is not only the busyness due to the season’s harvest but the leaders’ sheer indifference to the implementation of the promise they made for farmers’ rights, according to Chitra Bahadur Purja from Raghuganga Rural Municipality-4.

We’re dead busy in agricultural works. So, work is more important than election, he added.

Moreover, another farmer from Bagarphant, Tika Bahadur Karki, said, “If I get a break from work, I may go to vote. But I’ve not time to listen to leaders’ speeches anymore.”