A 3,000-strong demonstrators of physically and mentally challenged people carried out a protest rally in India’s capital city of Delhi. With this show of strength, the protestors wanted to draw the attention of political parties which offer sops to different categories of people with a view of cornering their votes.

The categories include minorities, farmers and others. But, none of the political parties have offered to sops the physically and mentally challenged people in their manifestoes during the last 14 elections. The manifestoes for the 15th Lok Sabha elections released by political parties have also ignored the interests of the handicapped people of India.

In all, the number of handicapped people in India is estimated to be around a hundred million which is about one percent of the total population of India. The demonstration was aimed at driving home the point that political parties cannot afford to take the interests of the physically and mentally challenged citizens of India lightly as they are a sizeable vote bank and may make a difference as to which party comes into power.