MANCHERIAL: In Gudem, the election buzz ends before it begins. This village in Mancherial hasn’t voted in a gram panchayat poll since 1983, with villagers boycotting elections ever since the govt reserved local seats for STs, a category they say never existed in the village.“I voted in the 1983 sarpanch election. After that, I don’t recall any GP elections being held here,” said 51-year-old Bera Bapu when TOI caught up with him at the village recently. He shared how all attempts by villagers to get the reservations revoked, have failed.Boycotted LS polls tooThe villagers even boycotted a Lok Sabha election once to draw attention to their demand, but to no avail.Chipping in, other locals also claimed that they found no mention of ST families living in Gudem in official records. “We protested, gave representations, but officials show no interest in converting these seats back to general,” said 70-year-old Thota Lakshmaiah, who served as upa sarpanch in 1987, when the seat was still unreserved.

But boycotting elections has had an adverse impact on Gudem. Sitting barely 500 metres from the Godavari River, surrounded by three major temples, locals rued how the village has seen little development over the years — scarcity of water, poor infrastructure and depreciating land value. “The Godavari is flowing right next to the village but we can’t get a drop of water. No one listens to us because we don’t have a sarpanch to take up our issues,” said Lakshmaiah.Land at throwaway pricesEven land transactions have become difficult, forcing many to “illegally” sell plots for a fraction of the market price, rued locals. While neighbouring villages get Rs 40 to Rs 50 lakh per acre — depending on distance from main road — Gudem residents struggle to get even Rs 10 lakh. Reason: they cannot get their land registered as it is notified as “agency area”.“As ST lands are protected and cannot be purchased by outsiders, we can’t sell our lands. If someone needs money, all they do is write a note saying they’re selling the land — often for as low as Rs 6 lakh per acre,” said Thandra Lingaiah. Hundreds face the same issue in this village of 2,100 voters and 800 houses.Losing out on jobsBut although their lands are classified as part of an agency area, villagers are not issued ST certificates since none belong to the community. “We are losing out on both counts. I wrote the constable exam four times and missed qualifying by half or one mark each time. Had I been eligible for an ST certificate, I would have secured a govt job by now,” said Thota Satish, a BSc graduate.Villagers say all their problems will be solved if there’s a functional elected local body. But for that to happen, they insist the posts must be converted back to general. Officials from State Election Commission said efforts are on to resolve the issue.