It was a day of voting on Saturday in two remote panchayats, Barar and Weir of Rajsamand district in Rajasthan. The unusual voting was cast for the removal of liquor shops from their villages.
More than 64 percent voted in favour of this, most of them were women. Three panchayats of the region have already banned liquor using the same voting method.
The Rajasthan Excise Act has a provision of the vote cast for removal of liquor shops in concerned gram panchayat and the pre-condition for the polls is that 20% of the voters must agree to vote by signing a petition.
The people of these 2 panchayats were running movement for this for the last six years.
There are 5,632 voters in these two panchayats and voting that started at 8 am was full of enthusiasm. Women came out in hordes for voting. A total of 3,624 cast their votes out of which 3,261 votes were in favour of the removal of liquor shops from their villages. Only 162 votes were against this.
Barar Sarpanch Pankaja Singh said to the media that our village men are addicted to liquor in high numbers is a reason that women and children in every second household suffer from domestic violence.
‘Looking at the situation the panchayat started the process six years ago and now we are delighted with the results.’ said Singh.
