Candidates are canvassing the often deserted remote villages to woo voters. But at the border posts in the western Terai, those entering India in search of work are seen rushing to reach their destinations.
What you should know
As the February 21 House of Representatives elections approach, election excitement has begun to increase in both rural and urban areas.
Candidates who are going door to door in remote villages that are usually deserted are busy wooing voters. But on the other hand, those who have entered India in search of work at the border posts in the western Terai are seen rushing to reach their destination.
Those who have entered India on the eve of the elections are not sure whether they will return home to vote. Those who earn their living by working in India express their pain as the elections approach. They express their sorrow that they have to go to India for employment every year due to their family's financial situation.
'I wish I could have voted and gone, but all my friends are leaving,' said Sushil Chaudhary of Bardiya Geruwa Rural Municipality, who is going to the mandi of Himachal Pradesh in India with a team of six youths in search of work. 'There was farming work at home. There is still mustard to be uprooted and corn to be sown.' But if you don't get enough work at this time, there will be a problem.' Their group returned home to celebrate the Maghi festival in the third week of Poush. 'Maghi has long been over, now we are worried about earnings more than the elections,' he said.
Sushil's group, which was found at the Gaddachauki checkpoint in Kanchanpur, was working as daily wage laborers in a bridge construction market in Himachal Pradesh. Subhash Chaudhary, 26, who is in the same group, says, 'More than 150 people from Dhukaniya and Shantipur in our ward are in the market there, we are the only ones who came home during Maghi.' According to him, those who are working in the bridge construction earn at least 500 to 700 rupees daily. They have now traveled to Himachal Pradesh to return home during the rice sowing season.
Sohanlal Chaudhary of Bardiya Geruwa-4 says that even though they wanted to stay in their own villages and vote during the elections, they were forced to go to India. ‘The leaders are not right, they have not done anything so far,’ he said, ‘If they had at least made arrangements for the people to get employment in their own country, they would not have had to enter the Gulf and India.’ He said that despite having to work abroad and enduring a lot of scolding, they had to enter India to earn money.
For the past few months, the Armed Police Force at the border posts of Kailali and Kanchanaburi has been keeping records of workers who travel long distances for employment. According to the records of the Armed Police Force check post at the Gaddachauki border post, this week alone, 130 to 160 Nepalis are entering various cities of India every day in search of work. Most of them are going to cities in Delhi, Punjab, Bangalore, Mumbai, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Most of them are going for work for a few months.
The number of people entering India through the Trinagar checkpoint in Kailali in search of employment is more than that at Gaddachauki.
According to the Armed Police Check Post in Trinagar, 3/400 Nepalis are entering India through the Gaurifanta checkpoint daily in search of work. According to a junior officer of the Armed Police posted at the post, the number of people coming and going across the border from Dhangadhi daily is more than 2,000, but most of them go for shopping and medical treatment. The police said that the maximum number of people going for employment is up to 500 per day.
Deepa Bista, a consultant at the Peace Rehabilitation Home near the Gaurifanta checkpoint, said that the number of young people going to India in search of work has been increasing in recent years. According to her, along with men, their neighbors and relatives, women are also going to India. "When stopped and questioned, they say they work there, some say they were called by relatives, many young people are going to big cities in India," she said.
Himal BK of Badaipur, Gauriganga Municipality-8, Kailali, who was going to Bangalore via Trinagar (Gauriphanta) last Thursday, seemed more worried about work than the elections. A teenage girl, a relative from the village, was also going to India with him. Himal was also in a hurry to enter India, like the Chaudhary youths who were met at the Gaddachauki checkpoint.
