LS polls: Special arrangements made for voters in remote Aliya Bet area in Gujarat

Bharuch (Gujarat) [India], May 5 : The district administration has made special arrangements so that a total of 254 voters, including 136 male and 118 female voters, of Aliya Bet, which is remote and surrounded by river and ocean water on all sides in Wagra tehsil of Gujarat's Bharuch district, can easily vote in the Lok Sabha elections.
A polling station has been built in a temporary shipping container. Special arrangements have been made for the voters of Aliya Bet, located at the confluence of the Arabian Sea and the Narmada Maiya. The voters will be able to exercise the right of suffrage at their doorstep.
This is the reason why the Election Commission of India's approach of 'every vote counts' and the importance of suffrage in a democracy is being validated by such voter-oriented measures.
The first elections in the country were held in 1951-52 and till the 2022 Gujarat Assembly elections, local self-rule and Parliamentary- Assembly elections were held during the last 70 years. Voters of Aliya Bet used to go to vote in Kaladara village, which is 82 km away by land and 15 km by water from the island by boat.
Often, if the water level of the river decreased, all the voters were taken in state buses by the district administration. Alia Bet in Wagra taluka is 17.70 km long and 4.82 km wide in the delta region of the Narmada river flowing through the Bharuch district of the state and merging into the Arabian Sea.
Aliya Bet with an area of 22,000 hectares is connected to Hansot by land, but as it is attached to the Kaladara Group Gram Panchayat, it falls under 68-Kaladara-02 of the 151-Wagra Assembly Constituency. In the Taluka Panchayat Election 2021, for the first time, 204 voters out of 230 voted.
In the last Assembly Election 2022, the Bharuch District Election Administration, under the guidance of District Collector Tushar Sumera, set up a voting booth in a specially made shipping container for the first time in Aliya Bet itself so that the people of here could easily vote at their doorsteps.
This was noted by the Election Commission of India which appreciated this people-centric effort. Due to the geographical location of Aliya Bet in the hinterland of Bharuch district, no state or central government buildings are available, so temporary arrangements have been made for voting in shipping containers in which the voters are eager to cast votes in large numbers on May 7.
After the election is over, the container is converted into a primary school, in which about 50 children of Aliya Bet are currently being educated. The electricity generated by the solar panels runs the container's tube lights and fans.
District Election Officer and Collector Tushar Sumera said, Aliya Bet is an inland island of Bharuch district, in which basic electoral facilities have been set up as per Election Commission guidelines, and we are still committed to providing extended facilities as per requirement.
Taking inspiration from the Election Commission's motto 'No Voter to be left behind', a polling station has been set up in a container in Aliya Bet itself since the assembly elections of 2022, due to which the difficulties and inconveniences faced by voters from far away have been removed.
Muhammadbhai Hasan Jat, a resident of Bet and a leader of the Jat community, said that the district administration has created a unique facility for voting at our doorsteps by setting up a polling booth in a shipping container, which is laudable. When this facility was not available, one had to go to Kaladara village by boat for voting, it was not possible to run the boat after 10 am as the tidewater receded.
If you want to come back after voting, you have to wait for the tide to rise again at 5 pm or take a detour of 82 km. In the 2017 assembly elections, the Administration made special arrangements for ST buses for the voters of Aliya Bet and voters were taken from here to Hansot at Bharuch and Wagra.
Voter Hanifaben Alibhai Jat said that we all voted together in the last assembly elections. "Most women on the island are uneducated, yet we do our duty to our country by voting regularly. All voters of the state and country, and especially educated voters, must vote," she added.
Around 500 Fakirani Jat people who live on the Island and still adhere to the Traditional culture, dress and food of Kutch, came from Kutch 350 years ago in search of daily bread and settled at Aliya Bet in Wagra Taluka with livestock.
500 men, women and children of 139 families of Aliabet are involved in animal husbandry. They have more than 1200 buffaloes and 600 camels. Selling milk in Bharuch villages is their main livelihood. Milk is deposited in the Shahera dairy and sold in Hansot taluka. Earlier, milk was transported in buckets, then cycles, bikes and tempo travellers took the milk for sale. Waterway with Bhadbhoot is the only way for 3 to 4 months of monsoon.

Locals connect to Hansot via road which is considered very difficult for 9 months, while the waterway with Bhadbhoot remains the only route in monsoons for 3 to 4 months. With the Narmada River on one side and the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Khambhat on the other side, the land here is infertile. The Island can be reached by a rough route. The Muslim Jat community living in Aliya Bet for years is still surviving by preserving its unique culture.