Lone voter looks for polling booth

It’s not difficult to find out why candidates have not bothered to campaign here. Ujaar Khera is home to only a lone voter,73-year-old Hari Nath.

He got his voter ID card three years ago. “Since then,I have been waiting to cast my vote. But from what I hear,politicians are not to be trusted and,hence,the Election Commission has introduced an option which allows a voter to reject all the candidates,” he says.

He is,however,curious about the elections. “Will there be a polling booth in the village?” Hari Nath says.

When his attention was drawn to the village,Delhi’s Chief Electoion Officer Vijay Dev said,“Delhi has some uninhabited revenue villages and this is one of them,locally known as Bechirag mohajja. Such villages may have been occupied several years ago,but no one lives there any more. He (Hari Nath) may be a nomad who has settled there.”

Hari Nath shows off his tiny room between the mazaar and the temple. The room has lights,a ceiling fan,fridge,radio,mobile phone,hot plate,mixer-grinder and a scooter parked in front. “The devotees who come here provide me with all the necessary information,” he says. “All these electrical goods are recent acquisitions. When I came here 15 years ago,I had to walk at least 5 km to arrange water and food. Locals helped me build this room. The land belongs to people staying in adjacent villages. They have been kind to me. Only last year,I got an Aadhaar card.”

Hari Nath claims to be a native of Pataudi in Haryana. “I was barely 30 when I left home and joined an ashram in Rajasthan. After the death of my guru,I left the ashram. I have been staying here for 15 years,looking after the mazaar and the temple,” he says,adding that he has a daughter who stays with her husband in Narnaul,Haryana. “We hardly meet,” he says.

Sherpur Dairy is number 55 in the deputy commissioner’s list of villages in Najafgarh subdivision of southwest district.