Politicians Turn Blind Eye To Voteless Vrindavan Widows

"When we do not exist for our families, what is our existence for the country? We cannot vote and it hurts, but we are helpless. Our basic concern is two meals and a roof. We don't expect much," says Beena Das, who hails from South 24 Parganas in West Bengal.

Basanti Dasi is from Tripura and has been living here for more than three decades. She along with many others have to sing bhajans for four hours daily at various ashrams to get their 3 and 100-gm rice.

"We have to beg for food. We are alone without our families and our existence does not matter to society or the country," she says.

There are about 400 widows living at the government-run ashram in Chaitanya Vihar here who get 2,000 monthly from Sulabh International, but most of them depend on begging.

"I've been living here since the past seven years but no one is worried about us. I don't expect anything from anyone," says Phool Rani from Sagar, Madhya Pradesh.

The government ashram was built in 2001 and a new building was added in 2008. One of the employees at the ashram says that apart from some local councillor not a single leader has visited the widows and the case is no different for this elections either.
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