Twenty villages in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna district were without electricity for 12 hours after the local administration decided to cut off power supply to ensure the safe landing of Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s helicopter, NDTV reported.
The district witnessed a high of 42 degrees Celsius on Sunday.
Local reports had cited a circular on Friday that said that power would be disrupted between 4 pm on May 19 and 6 pm on May 20, as two high voltage power lines pass through the area, where the home minister's chopper was scheduled to land.
Power was restored at about 3 am today after villagers protested at the local power supply office. The home minister is now taking a different route to travel to Satna, where he will unveil a statue of Thakur Ranmat Singh, who fought against the British during the mutiny of 1857.
"There is no water, no power in 20 villages...don't know what to do. We have babies at home. Everyone is suffering here. We have tried speaking to people in the local power department office...they said they are helpless," locals had told the news channel.
This is not the first time common people in Madhya Pradesh were affected due to VIP movement. There was a big controversy in February 2016, when a farmer Suresh Parmer in Sehore, had alleged that he was forced to cut his standing wheat crop by officials who want the area cleared for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally. Parmer, who is the owner of a 15-acre land, claimed he suffered huge losses.
"I want to clear all doubts on this. The land where the stage is being constructed has been taken by consent. We have not built the stage on any farmer's land and no instruction has gone to farmers to harvest the crop," agriculture minister Gauri Shankar Bisen had said back then.
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