‘Fix Our Roads or No Votes’: Jonai Villagers Issue Ultimatum After Flood

The floodwaters may be receding in Jonai, but the devastation they left behind is only beginning to sink in. In field after field, homestead after homestead, there is one constant: silence, broken only by the soft squelch of boots sinking into sludge. For hundreds of farming families, this isn’t just another flood. It’s a disaster that has washed away years of toil, hope, and dignity.

It began with a night of relentless rain, a pounding so fierce that by dawn on Saturday, rivers and tributaries descending from the Arunachal hills surged uncontrollably. Within hours, bunds collapsed, roads vanished, and floodwaters swallowed vast stretches of cultivated land. In villages like No. 2 Sirampuria, farmers watched helplessly as their standing paddy fields, hundreds of bighas, were buried under layers of sand, silt, and sorrow.

Stored crops, seeds for the next sowing, tools, all gone. What remains is uncertainty, and mud that clings not only to their fields but to every step forward.

In the eastern corner of Jonai, Silasuti Panchayat faces a calamity of its own. Here, it’s not just the rain, but the fury of the Mekuri stream, swollen and violent, that has transformed entire villages into ghost settlements. The stream, which originates near Likabali in Arunachal Pradesh, unleashed a torrent of water and sediment that crushed everything in its path.

Villages like Jipu, Ghagara, Dala, Bridgebari, Brahmapur, and Chila Brahmapur lie inundated, unrecognisable beneath the weight of mud and misery. The only paved road connecting Siilasuti to Malinipur, once a lifeline, now lies entombed beneath five kilometres of sludge and silt. Even bicycles cannot pass. What was once a route to schools, hospitals, and markets is now an impassable death strip.

Inside these stranded villages, life is a daily struggle. Pregnant women, the sick, schoolchildren, the elderly, all trapped in a limbo of inaccessibility. Homes have become tombs of memories, buried waist-deep in muck. For many, displacement was the only option, abandoning generations-old houses in search of dry ground.

What hurts even more than the flood, say residents, is the chronic silence of those in power. “They come during elections, with smiles and speeches. But when the water comes, we are left alone,” says an elderly farmer, wiping mud from his face with a trembling hand.

With elections approaching, anger is hardening into resolve. Villagers have now issued a stark ultimatum: unless immediate steps are taken to rebuild washed-away roads and to control the recurring wrath of the Mekuri stream, they will boycott the polls.

In both Sirampuria and Silasuti, there’s no need for slogans. The message is written in every shattered town, every flooded field, and every family forced to leave behind their home: help us now, or don’t ask for our votes later.

For the people of Jonai, this isn't just a flood recovery, it’s a cry for justice, and a fight for the right to be remembered even when the waters are gone.

Also Read: BJP Aspirant Penalised for Flood Relief? Khumtai MLA Slams Bureaucracy