Madhya Pradesh: Differently-abled people play cricket match in scorching heat to spread awareness about voting in Dhar

Dhar: Specially-abled people played a cricket match in scorching heat to spread awareness among the voters to exercise their franchise in the Lok Sabha election on the polling day in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district.
The match was played at Kila Ground located at the district headquarters between Badnawar team and Dhar team. Team Badnawar batted first and set a score of 134 runs in 10 overs, while chasing Dhar team could score only 88 runs at the loss of 8 wickets.
Dharmendra batted brilliantly for Badnawar team, scored 85 runs and took four wickets as well. He was declared as the Man of the Match for his brilliant performance.
Dhar collector Priyank Mishra told ANI, "Polling in Dhar parliamentary seat will be held on May 13. We have found that many people do not go to vote on polling day citing small reasons like it is too hot and there will be long queues at polling stations. We received a proposal from an association of specially-abled people in our district that a cricket match should be organised to bring awareness among the voters."
"We liked the proposal and their cricket match was played between Dhar team and Badnawar team. In which team Badnawar won the match. Differently-abled played the match in heat during the day time. With this they wanted to give a message that if they can come forward, play cricket in the heat to spread awareness for voting then the voter should also cooperate and participate in voting," the collector said.
He further said that be it a little hot on polling day or one has to bear some trouble or has to attend a wedding ceremony, religious ceremony or a family function on polling day, ignoring all this, one must exercise their franchise. This is the only message they wanted to convey.
"The freedom fighters who fought for the independence of the country had also worried about the heat, then we would not have been living in a democratic country. Therefore, people are requested to remember them and vote on May 13," he added.
Differently-abled cricketer Gurudutt Kante told ANI, "Our purpose behind playing cricket is that we differently-abled people can play cricket in such scorching sun, then common people should also come forward and exercise their franchise."
Dhar parliamentary seat will go to polls in the fourth phase of LS polls on May 13 which will be the last phase in the state with seven other parliamentary seats in the state.
Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh are being conducted in four phases. The first phase of polling was held on April 19. The next three phases will be conducted on April 26, May 7 and May 13. The counting of votes will be held on June 4.
Madhya Pradesh has a total of 29 Lok Sabha constituencies, making it the sixth-largest state in terms of parliamentary representation. Out of these, 10 seats are reserved for SC and ST candidates, while the remaining 19 are unreserved.