Development is a non-issue in the country’s largest state

Shahira Naim in Lucknow

The smooth road from Badaun towards Mainpuri suddenly becomes full of crater-sized potholes bringing the car to a screeching halt. The district had changed to Etah. After inching for some 20 km through such a speed-breaking dusty road, one moves back to a slick road. The district had changed to Mainpuri and the car picked up speed once more.

The anecdote is illustrative of why ‘vikas’ is a non-issue in this Lok Sabha election. While Badaun and Mainpuri is represented by the Samajwadi Party, the potholed patch from another century falls in the constituency of BJP’s Rajveer Singh, whose father Kalyan Singh is the Governor of Rajasthan and son Sandeep Singh is a minister in the Yogi government.

This visible lack of development in the BJP constituencies is, however, not part of the popular discourse. Problems remains or have become worse than those in 2014 but political positions remain virtually unchanged among those who had voted for Modi in 2014.

Interestingly, Modi appears to be the only “mudda” in this election. People are either for him or against him. Those who declare that they are going to vote for Modi admit that they had voted for him in 2014 as well.

The impact of BJP’s multi-media propaganda blizzard is clear. These Modi admirers cite all programmes launched by the Modi government one after the other. Nevertheless, few can recall if any scheme worked for them on the ground.

The only gamechanger 

There appears to be only one game changer in this election. It is the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi as it is the only scheme that people say has reached a sizeable section of farmers.

In Rooppur Kamalu village in Pilibhit, Roshan Lal Pathak sits at the shop of the local quack giving a sermon on the development of the Modi government. He lists every scheme of the Modi government — Ujjwala, Swachcha Bharat, Saubhagya so on. He has already received two instalments of Rs 2000 each of the Kisan Samman Nidhi. An owner of 3 acres, he refuses to acknowledge if he faces the problem of stray cattle or low prices on his produce.

“If people leave their cows on the road how can we blame the Modi government.” His vote, like 2014, would go to Modi.

It is completely immaterial to him that the local MP last time was Maneka Gandhi and this time is son Varun Gandhi. “I voted for Modi last time, and my vote will go to him again”. The only persons vocally agreeing with Pathak is the quack Harsih Srivastava and Suraj Pal, owner of the general store nearby. They have also received one installment each. The large group of men who were listening to the conversation remained silent. Most of them were daily wagers or farm labourers, without any land, hence had not benefited from the Kisan Samman Nidhi. None was beneficiary of any other Modi scheme. In front of the vocal pro-Modi voices, they preferred to keep their cards close to their chest.

Among them was old shrivelled Kalyan Singh, who owns two bighas of land. He, however, has not received any money of the Kisan Samman Nidhi.

“I have gone to the bank so many times, and they tell me to wait. Those applications which had been wetted by the Pradhan have received money and those he did not forward are still waiting,” he points out.

Pilibhit people openly speak against the mother-son duo. The cross section of people point out that despite their representing the constituency for 35 years, there was still no degree college, medical college, engineering college or any industry. 

In another world

In contrast, Rampur, represented by Mahagathbandhan candidate Mohd Azam Khan for a record nine times in the state Assembly appears to be a city out of the Arabian Nights with its arched gateways, well-maintained old mansions and a string of educational institutions, including the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University that has a campus spread over 300 acres. The Jaya Prada-Azam “khakhi underwear” spat may be an issue in the national media but for the locals, it appears to be hardly of any matter. Fifty-year-old Rani, who was a recipient of the Rs 1,000 per month Samajwadi pension, is now living from hand to mouth. A zardozi worker she said, along with her five children, she worked at home for a supplier in Jaipur. “Now the work has completely stopped as I cannot send the finished good any longer as they demand papers after the introduction of GST. We are artisans not businesspersons. Hence, we no longer do that work. My sons now go in search of work every day. On days we are lucky, the family eats two square meals a day.”

Raja Ram from Afzalpur patti in Rampur owns three bighas and has received Rs 2000. However, he is still critical of the BJP saying that a family cannot survive on this measly amount.

“My sons are graduates and post-graduates. They now run a tea shop as the jobs promised by Modi never reached them”, said Raja Ram pointing to the young man making tea and serving the customers.

Both Rani and Raja Ram tell us to have a look at the Rampur district hospital and the new tehsil building before leaving Rampur as further proof of what the Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan had done for the city. Harman Singh Yadav, who also stops at the tea shop recalls the “bhai-charey ke din” (days of brotherhood), when there was no tension. He regrets that “kaam nahi bolta”, a cutting comment on the Akhilesh Yadav government’s popular ad line “kaam bolta hai” (Development speaks for itself).

Political positions have remained what they were and only hardened along caste lines since 2014. What is expected to bring in different results in 2019 is the joining of hands of once political opponents SP-BSP-RLD against the BJP. Development clearly does not pay in these parts.