Varanasi/Allahabad/Jaunpur/ Pratapgarh/Rae Bareily: Shyam Deo Roy Chaudhary has won the Varanasi South seat on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket in the last five Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections.

Chaudhary’s modest middle-class lifestyle and popularity as an approachable politician has worked well for him so far. That may be about to change in this assembly election—the first since the delimitation of constituencies carried out in 2008.

Delimitation, normally synonymous with urbanization, results in the redrawing of electoral boundaries keeping in mind the bulge in population. As a result, Chaudhary’s constituency now includes new areas dominated by Muslims, which were earlier part of the Varanasi Cantonment seat.

Changing contours: Shyam Deo Roy Chaudhary of the BJP campaigning in his South Varanasi constituency. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint

Because the demography of the state, like for the rest of India, has shifted towards a younger population, it also means these are pockets packed with young voters, who in an urban setting are less amenable to the traditional appeal of caste and religion. For these people, several of whom may be voting for the first time, the promise of jobs and a regime that is effective in fostering economic development offer a more attractive proposition.

The third phase of voting in the Uttar Pradesh elections, staggered over seven stages, will take place on Wednesday.

Varanasi South

Chaudhary is unfazed and says he will win his sixth consecutive election. Judging from opinions voiced by a cross-section of the constituency, which will go to the polls on Wednesday, the voters aren’t all so sure.

Playing out in the polls is a mix of personal preferences and national, state and local issues, against the backdrop of delimitation.

Pratap Chaudhary, a medical representative and a fellow Bengali like Shyam Deo Roy, whose parents migrated from Dhaka in Bangladesh, says he will vote for the incumbent and explains why. “Firstly, he is a good person; secondly, he is from my community, and I cannot vote for the Congress because they caused partition, and other candidates are bad,” Chaudhary says. “Let’s face that reality. Muslims will not vote for a BJP candidate, so I will definitely vote for him to ensure his victory.”

In Hanuman Bhatak, a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood that has been newly combined with Varanasi South, Alladi Ahmed hesitates to name his choice. Instead, he voices a cynical view on political parties.

“The BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party, the state’s ruling party) said a lot of things in the last election. They said our girls will get Rs10,000 when they get married. I must have filed applications 10 times, but did not get any benefits. You come with me and I will show you 20 others like me,” he added with an exasperated sigh.

“These election promises are a gimmick. When inflation is so high, how is it any good if you give me a laptop or quota for my kids, if I cannot afford my children’s education?”

With an eye on the Muslim vote, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party have held out a number of promises to the minorities. The Congress has proposed a 4.5% sub-quota for Muslims to be carved out of the 27% quota reserved for other backward classes and a scheme worth Rs18,000 crore for weavers, who are predominantly Muslim.

“Here people are concerned about their local issues,” Roy Chaudhary says. “They want good infrastructure, jobs, and corruption bothers youngsters.”

First-time voters

In Jaunpur, a district adjoining Varanasi, Robin Singh and his friends are first-time voters—an Election Commission official estimates they account for one-third of the electorate in the age group 18-39. Unlike their peers in Surai Sujan in Varanasi Cantonment, an impoverished Muslim neighbourhood with 150,000 people, whose energies are entirely devoted to earning a daily wage from weaving, Singh and his friends have strong views about politics and corruption.

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With UP set to go in for the third phase of assembly elections, voters in the state are still grappling with the same basic issues they did five years back.

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“We are with Anna Hazare,” says Singh, referring to the anti-corruption activist. “Of course I am bothered about corruption. In my college, if I can pay Rs200 to an invigilator, he will give me good marks in practical exams. If I can’t pay Rs3 lakh, I do not get a job in police (department).”

This group of first time-voters is well aware of the 2G scam—irregularities in the allocation of second-generation telecom spectrum and licences—and their opinions are influenced by television networks.

“We see on television about these scams. If they could have given the money to the poor so many people need not have to die,” is their collective view. “We feel the BJP is the better party because they are fighting against corruption.”

Casual workers crowding the labour markets on the outskirts of the cities of Pratapgarh and Allahabad aren’t satisfied with the recent exposes of graft in public office. Corruption is a phenomenon they confront in their lives.

At Hanuman Mandir Chowk in Allahabad, these labourers complain about the bribery prevalent in getting their job cards made under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Centre’s flagship jobs programme.

“Until I give the pradhan (village headman) his dues, my cards won’t be made and I have to share my wage with him,” says one of them, Pachdev Ram.

Similarly, in Pratapgarh, Mohan Lal, another labourer, says, “There is no development here, no factories, no place where we can get a regular job.” A bystander, Rajesh Kumar, quickly adds, “We don’t get job cards until we bribe, we don’t (get) houses unless we pay Rs30,000.”

Chief minister Mayawati’s administration has spent public funds on erecting statues of herself and Dalit icons such as B.R. Ambedkar, drawing criticism by her opponents.

Amit Srivastava, in Ambedkar Village on the outskirts of Pratapgarh, says, “Everybody here is a graduate, but we don’t have jobs... Can these statues give us job or food?”

Dharma Raj, also from Pratapgarh, is clear about what he means by development. “Poor should get benefits, not the rich.”

Most of these labourers belong to the Dalit community, which constitutes 22% of the population in Uttar Pradesh and forms the core votebank of Mayawati’s BSP. The BSP won Pratapgarh in 2007, but is now facing the anti-incumbency factor.

Identity politics

While the governance deficit is a sore point, it is also a fact that identity politics can be more than an offsetting factor. For instance, the group of labourers, although unhappy with their legislator and the government, are unable to ignore the appeal of their common Dalit identity.

Mohan Lal says, “During Mayawati’s rule, if anybody goes to police station with a complaint, it will be registered. Also, she increased our daily wages. Officials eat all the money meant for us, how can I blame Mayawati? My vote is for Mayawati.”

“I am a Chamar (Jatav),” says Hira Devi of Ambedkar village, with obvious pride. She is upset with the administration, which is not sanctioning her widow’s pension, but refuses to blame Mayawati.

“She is doing something about us at least! And nobody dares to break into my house at night,” she said in a subtle reference to the perceived inability of the previous government of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party to ensure law and order.

Even the upper castes, which constitute about 18% of Uttar Pradesh’s population, fear the previous regime.

In Malhani assembly constituency in Jaunpur, college student Raj Kumar Tripathi swears by Dhananjay Singh, a BSP politician and member of Parliament who is in jail on murder charges.

“His wife is fighting (election) and I will vote for him. He was always available for us and he has the best winning chance to defeat the SP. If they come to power, it will be again goonda (thugs) raj, and we will have difficulties.” The “we” refers to his Brahmin community.

In the final analysis, it is clear that urbanization has forced delimitation, inducing an element of unpredictability in the Uttar Pradesh elections. How this plays out against traditional voting patterns based on religion and caste is still not clear.

appu.s @livemint.com

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