Family members of rural area driven out from their villages stranded in Brahmagiri, 20 km away from Puri. | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT The 2024 Lok Sabha election might be a nationwide celebration in democracy for millions but Ashok Sethi and his family, citizens living in this coastal region, may have to forego another opportunity to vote. Five years ago, in Nuagaon, in Odisha’s Krushnaprasad block under the Puri Lok Sabha constituency, Mr. Sethi and his fellow villagers faced social ostracisation for refusing to wash dirty clothes, an exploitative vocation they had inherited from their forefathers. Now stranded in Brahmagiri, 15 km away from his own village, Mr. Sethi holds out hope that the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) will intervene, enabling them to exercise their right to vote. In the same locality lives Maheshwar Barik and his family members, who too had refused to perform the ‘hereditary’ menial job of cutting hair, and clearing leftover food on social occasions, in 2018. They were also driven out from Manpur village under the Brahmagiri Police Station. Following …