Tucked away in the backwaters of Panshet lake, Gholgaon village in Velhe taluka of Pune district serves as a polling station every time an election comes up, but the villagers do not even know who the present prime minister is.The village survived the `greater common good' (read Tanaji Sagar Dam, popularly known as the Panshet dam) only to become a place that time forgot. Today, as another election comes up, the villagers get ready for their sole glimpse of the government machinery at work - the poll presiding officer and his staff - who take the only route available to ensure that democracy is upheld in this outpost of civilisation.``They came last year also,'' says Maruti Kalu Paradhi, the SSC-pass school master of the primary school. ``Some officials did come during the pulse polio drive but the doctor could not come because his jeep broke down. But I am yet to see a politician in this village.''No psephologist would bother with this area. After all none of the factors that are doing the roundsmatter out here. Whether the Pawar factor or the Kargil one or Sonia's place of birth. They have all been rendered invalid by the terrain.The only way to the village is through a gruelling 18 km-trek through the hills that gets cut off every time the rains turn the knee-deep streams into formidable barriers. The nearest contact with civilisation is Tekpole, another village that is frequented by the government motor launch.No wonder then that Bhamboji Polekar does not even know that Atal Behari Vajpayee is busy using Kargil for his return to high office. Forget Vajpayee, Polekar does not even know who his elected representatives are. His neighbour, Vithal Natu Polekar, scratches his head when Kargil is mentioned. All he knows is that once India fought a war with Pakistan in 1971.For the local politicians they matter very little. In the last elections Ashok Mohol was elected to Parliament while Ananatrao Thopte made it to the assembly. Both were Congress candidates. Today the equation has been changedby Sharad Pawar; while Mohol has joined the Nationalist Congress Party, Thopte is still in the Congress.The clock, the NCP symbol, is virtually unknown here and the panja rules. Not that it matters to the Congress because all the 29 villages in the Panshet backwaters put together barely form a electoral body that could rock political fortunes.``I once put the stamp on the panja,'' says a villager of the elections that have been reduced to a battle of the symbols here. For 40 years they stamped the panja till somebody suggested the dhanush-ban (of the Shiv Sena). Since then they vote in favour of this fascinating new symbol.
