SURAT: Panchayat polls in around 10,000 villages of Saurashtra are drawing voters from places as far away as Surat and Mumbai. A large number of Saurashtrians headed to their native villages on Wednesday evening from Mumbai and Surat. An estimated 1,000 buses from Surat will leave for Saurashtra on Wednesday evening while around 500 buses will come from Mumbai.
Saurashtrians will leave on Wednesday night and reach their villages in the morning. All the buses were booked by the supporters of candidates to bring and drop the voters back to Surat or Mumbai. At their villages they are provided accommodation in a community hall or the temple. Voters avoid going home as that will mean arranging for food and water in a locked house.
All will be provided hot bath water and morning tea. "In breakfast we have arranged fafda, marcha and jalebi, favourite of all Saurashtrians. Similarly in lunch all the guests will be offered popular potato-brinjal vegetable with puri and sweets," said Mansukh Patel of Khopala village in Bhavnagar district. The afternoon time is leisure time for the group of voters to meet their relatives or rest at their home. At night the same bus again leave for Surat in which the voters will be brought back to the city.
"Through the arrangement we can assure voting as high as 90 per cent which would remain around 70 per cent otherwise," added Patel.
"This model of transport and voting is preferred by the voters as they don't want to stay out of their business or job soon after the Diwali vacation. That's why the arrangement has been done by the candidates to meet the requirements of the voters," said Jaysukh Parsana, a diamond broker in Varachha.
"There will be a partial affect on diamond business as large number of people going to Saurashtra. Due to relatives in villages people have to go to vote and minimum three buses to each village will go from the city," said Dinesh Navadiya, president of Surat Diamond Association (SDA).
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