BAJURA, MARCH 1 Residents of the remote Bichchhya area in Himali Rural Municipality are heading into the upcoming House of Representatives election with a clear message for candidates: no roads, no tower, no vote. Locals across Wards 1, 2 and 3 of Himali Rural Municipality say they are unanimously pressing every candidate and political party that visits for campaign activities to commit to two things - road connectivity and a mobile phone tower in every ward. Bichchhya, which covers nearly 35 per cent of Bajura district, remains entirely without road access. The area comprises 13 villages spread across difficult terrain, and travelling from one village to another takes more than a day on foot. A temporary road has reached as far as the Humla border, but none of Bichchhya's settlements has road access yet. 'Roads and a phone tower have always been our key demands. This time too, we are raising the same issues,' said Dhyan Bahadur Rokaya of Ward 3. The communication gap compounds the hardship. Although a mobile tower exists in Neta, many settlements fall outside its coverage due to distance. Residents of Gumba village in Ward 3 have no mobile network at all and have adopted the slogan 'No tower, no vote' as their collective bargaining position going into the election. 'We have told candidates clearly - without a tower, no vote,' said Jagat Lama, adding that discussions within the village on the issue were ongoing. The infrastructure deficit has direct consequences for health and safety. Ward 3 Chairperson Mangal Bahadur Budha said the former Bichchhya VDC continues to lag behind in road access, education, health and communication services. 'If there were road connectivity, many patients could receive timely treatment and lives could be saved,' he said. 'Our main demand is road connectivity. Without roads, we are facing immense hardship,' said local Sajjan Budha Thapa. Electricity has reached most settlements in the area. Around a year ago, the Kaduri Agricultural and Association British Gurkhas Nepal project installed electricity across Bichchhya at a cost of approximately Rs 140 million - the one piece of infrastructure the area can point to as delivered. Gumba village, however, remains without power. There are 671 registered voters in Ward 1, 657 in Ward 2 and 551 in Ward 3. Two polling centres have been set up in Wards 1 and 3, and one in Ward 2.