In Sonia’s constituency, mystery disease afflicts women

Lucknow: Most of the women here walk with a slouch, others cannot even get up without help. More than half the women in Poore Prithvi, a village in Sonia Gandhi’s constituency Rae Bareli are crippled by a mystery disease.
The mystery ailment has not spared even children. Seven-year-old Qayyum has never been to school because it requires walking a long distance to another village where the school is and twisted feet make it tough for the boy to walk.As he grows older, he is getting his peer and play group reduced in strength and size. When most boys his age play cricket and climb trees, he cannot even run.
Qayyum's father, Naeem has a growing worry that now even his younger son, five-year old Nishad, is getting a twisted foot rendering him unfit to walk long distances. “Treatment has helped little,” said the man.
The plight of the village, however, is not only about a mystery disease leaving people crippled but also the political apathy that has come its way all through. Being in Salon assembly segment of Amethi parliamentary constituency represented by Rahul Gandhi and under Rae Bareli district represented by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, it never had anyone inquiring about the disease that affected 90% of the village, not even during elections. The village is not more than 18km away from ‘Sonia awaas’ in Bhuyemau, Sonia Gandhi's official stay in Rae Bareli.
“It is for eight years now that I am living like this. It started with a pain in the backbone,” said 40-year-old Parvati, the latest victim. Doctors have not been able to decipher the cause of disease. “They only said it’s a disease of bones,” she said.
Villagers said it’s the contaminated water which has left women and children with crooked bones. A villager Awdhesh Kumar Srivastava said, “In 2009, an NGO collected water samples but we don’t know the findings.” Mahendra Kumar Tiwari, who had worked with Unicef in the area, said, “We wrote to child and women welfare department and to health officials but nobody ever came for any inspection.”
Poore Prithvi's plight in fact has made it an infamous village in Deeh block, but it has failed to attract the attention of the state or the Central government.
Lawyer Ajay Agarwal, who contested LS elections from Rae Bareli on BJP ticket has now raised the issue of contaminated drinking water in the district with the PMO. After he wrote to PMO in September, ministry of drinking water and sanitation, government of India, sought report from the UP rural development department on contaminated drinking water affecting villages of Rae Bareli. “Contaminated drinking water has affected many parts of Rae Bareli,” said Agarwal.
Poore Prithvi is predominantly a Muslim village with considerable number of Pasi families. “Two wells from which people draw out water are dirty. Never has government done any water treatment in the village,” said Kalawati. Her problem has confined her to the cot. She cannot even do her daily chores without help.