Pawara tribes tryst with voting in remote hamlet of Maharashtra

The population of 810 people feel casting their vote is one of the right things they need to do in life in the form of a ‘duty’, but they do not know its purpose clearly as it has not made any difference in their lives. There are 310 registered voters from Ambapani and their last Lok Sabha election voting percentage was around 59%.

Living far from civilisation, the Pawara tribe in Ambapani hamlet of Yawal tehsil in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, got registered to vote for the first time in 1994 since then they used to go to a gram panchayat, a 13 km walk, to cast their vote.

In 2004, for the first time, a temporary polling booth was created at the village. Since 2009, polling has taken place at a Zilla Parishad school inside the village, a kutcha structure.

Pawara tribes are mostly found in the Satpura range of Jalgaon and Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. Ambapani’s Pawara community has been scattered in Satpura hills along the border of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra for generations. The population of 810 people feel casting their vote is one of the right things they need to do in life in the form of a ‘duty’, but they do not know its purpose clearly as it has not made any difference in their lives. There are 310 registered voters from Ambapani and their last Lok Sabha election voting percentage was around 59%.

Moharale village, the gram panchayat village for Ambapani is 13 km away and to collect ration items, people of Ambapani walk to Korpawali village, which is also 13 km away.

No political campaigns have ever reached this area and politicians have not given speeches or canvass for votes. The residents are even unaware who the candidates are for the election as most of them said they just press the ballot and get done with the voting process.

Ambapani is one of the seven network shadow areas in Yawal tehsil (Langdaamba, Usmali, Jamnya, Gadrya, Ambapani, Ruikheda and Charmali) where Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are brought to the polling centres by foot as there are no roadways for four-wheeler vehicles to ply. The steep, muddy pathway that leads to Ambapani is uneven, passes through a forest and can only accommodate a two-wheeler at a time as one side is abutted by hills and the other has a cliff, which can be precarious for travellers.

To reach the hamlet, this reporteravoided the regular route that seemed risky and chose to travel through the Yawal forest, a rocky, uneven, dry forest land crossing a few streams on the way, encompassing a six-hour drive up and down the hills.