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Politicians have forgotten they promised Azad’s village a school

The story of neglect and government apathy here is same as faced by any other village in the country.

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Shaheedon ki chitaon par lagenge har baras mele, watan par mar mitne walon ka yahi baki nishan hoga. It seems this famed Urdu couplet was written to depict the true story of Badarqa village in Unnao district, the birthplace of great freedom fighter Chandrashekhar Azad.

No matter who has been at the helm in the Centre, year after year neglect has been heaped on this non-descript village so much so that there is hardly any sign that it is the birthplace of a great revolutionary is visible. The story of neglect and government apathy here is same as faced by any other village in the country.

The village recently was into news as Team Anna came here and asked people to once again stand up for their rights while remembering Azad’s sacrifice.

At a roadside tea stall, after Team Anna packed off their 90-minute visit, a small group of villagers got talking.

“In run up to the Azad’s birth centenary in 2006, Mulayam Singh-led government had passed a proposal to develop Badarqa with better roads, a girls school in his mother’s name, a medical centre, and a state level shooting range. But till date, it remains on paper. Now, Mayawati’s term too is coming to end but nothing has happened,” Rajesh Shukla, a villager, told DNA.

Badarqa has a police chowki and a post office and the former is operated from a temporary place. It also has hospitals but for any medical emergency, villagers have to rush to either Kanpur or Unnao.

While Azad and his group heroics showed India the path of revolution, his village and the dusty bylanes remain in dark as electricity comes only for 7-8 hours a day.

“Some times we get power in day, sometimes in night. There is a water tank but most of us use hand pumps. The roads are poorly built as the contractor left its construction midway. There is no proper bus connectivity to our village.” said another villager Siddharth Kumar.

Another villager said, even if a fraction of hundreds of crores spent on ‘grand memorials’ or swindled in ‘scams’ is spent on his village, it would be a different place. Probably freedom from the curse of underdevelopment would be the best homage to Azad.

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