Development Trumps Beef Politics in UP Panchayat Polls

The cacophony of beef politics fails to find an echo in the UP panchayat Polls, writes Sharat Pradhan

Voters wait in queues to cast their votes in the second phase of the UP panchayat polls in Mirzapur on October 13, 2015. (Photo: PTI)

The raging beef politics may be affecting the political destiny of Bihar, where the battle for the ballot is currently on. It however, does not seem to have any impact on the ongoing panchayat elections in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. The brutal lynching of a 50-year old Muslim in Bisada village of Dadri sub-division in Greater Noida on September 28, that gave birth to beef politics, has failed to affect the rural folk who are currently in the process of electing the largest number of representatives in any single electoral system in the world.

(Photo: PTI)

Voting for the UP panchayat polls which began on October 9 will continue till October 29. As many as 59,163 gram pradhans, 7,45,595 members of gram panchayats, 77,953 members of kshetriya panchayats and 3127 members of zila panchayats are to be directly elected across the state. Block pramukhs and zila panchayat chairpersons would be elected through an indirect election later.

Villagers waiting in queues to caste their vote during the second phase of UP panchayat elections at Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh on October 13, 2015. (Photo: PTI)

The Development Agenda

Significantly, these panchayat elections remain limited to purely local issues among which “development” appears to be of prime importance. There is no denying that personal equations and prejudices do play a key role in influencing a voter’s mind. However, what it’s quite clear that the voter prefers checking the credentials of the candidate.

“After all, if you want to ensure any development in your area, it cannot be possible without the active support of the administration, which listens only to the ruling party”, points out Radhey Lal, a former village head under Mohanlalganj tehsil, about 25 km from Lucknow.

Villagers clash over ballot tampering at a polling station during the second phase of the UP panchayat elections at a village in Pratapgarh district on October 13, 2015. (Photo: PTI)

Panchayat elections, that were once associated only with violence, are today perceived as a symbol of authority and a vehicle of development. Thanks to the devolution of power to the panchayats that came with the 73rd Amendment in 1994, these elections have acquired a new dimension.

Panchayat Polls: Vehicle for Development

• Development emerges as a primary issue in the ongoing polls
• In some minority dominated rural pockets, Hindus are lobbying aggressively for Muslim candidates and vice versa
• Asaduddin Owaisi’s party AIMIM tests waters in UP for the first time by fielding 50 candidates

Candidate’s Credibility Matters

Apparently, increasing education and awareness among common masses – largely attributable to the internet revolution that has reached the farthest corners of UP – has provoked many into raising pointed questions. Significantly, this time such questions also appear to cross the feudal barrier that was more pronounced during the earlier panchayat elections, including the last one in 2010.

Back in the minority dominated rural pockets areas of Malihabad one can see Hindus aggressively lobbying for Muslim candidates or vice versa. “It is the goodwill of the candidate that matters and, mind you, goodwill cannot be earned in a day. So we know that the person we are voting for will keep his word and not take us for a ride”, asserts 27-year-old Zubair, a self-employed science graduate.

Similar reports are heard from most corners of the state except perhaps certain parts of western UP where the communal environment got recharged on account of the Dadri killing followed by outrageous comments from various leaders. The divide seen in the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 is making its presence felt once again.

Police arrive after incidents of violence during panchayat elections at a village in Meerut district, October 13, 2015. (Photo: PTI)

AIMIM’s Plunge into Panchayat Polls

It was this divide that apparently also prompted the Hyderabad-based All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) to take a plunge into the political cauldron of Uttar Pradesh this time. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, who forayed into Bihar with six nominees in the ongoing state assembly elections, thought it was pragmatic to take the grass root panchayat route if his ultimate goal was the UP Assembly election in March 2017.

(Courtesy: Asaduddin Owaisi’s Facebook page)

The party has fielded about 50 nominees from Lucknow, Azamgarh Sultanpur, Faizabad, Basti, Siddharth Nagar, Sant Kabirnagar, Gorakhpur, Balrampur, Gonda and Mirzapur in eastern UP, besides Moradabad, Saharanpur, Mathura, Aligarh, Amroha and Ghaziabad in western UP.

The maximum number of candidates – around 10 – are in the fray from Azamgarh, the parliamentary constituency of the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, which is a 74-member panchayat. Evidently, Owaisi’s aim is to tear into Mulayam’s self-created persona as the ultimate “messiah” of Muslims, whose support over the decades has scripted SP’s success story.

Challenge to Mulayam’s Fiefdom

In a telephonic interview, the AIMIM chief sought to point out,

I simply wish to draw the attention of the people of this state to certain facts which will automatically dispel this falsely created impression that the Samajwadi Party or its president is the “true protector or messiah of Muslims.

And with that he went on to cite statistics from the National Crime Bureau Report (NCRB) which shows a sharp rise in communal incidents during the Samajwadi Party regime over the past three-and-a-half years.

Voters waiting in queue to cast their votes during second phase of panchayat elections in Moradabad on October 13, 2015. (Photo: PTI)

And that would be his key message to Muslims who, he feels, have been taken for granted by Mulayam and his party. “Mulayam has also not cared to keep his promises to Muslims – be it reservation in jobs or withdrawal of terror cases against innocent young Muslims”, alleges Owaisi. He is now being labelled by the Samajwadi Party as a “BJP agent”.

Owaisi’s tirade may not make any dent in SP’s fortunes as far as the panchayat elections are concerned. After all, since these elections are not being contested by any political outfit on party lines, any ruling dispensation is in an unenviable position of trying to lure the winners into their fold. The strategy is bound to give the ruling party its numerical strength at the panchayat level. But, whether those numbers alone would be able to turn the SP’s fortunes at the hustings over the next seventeen months, when UP goes to poll still remains a million dollar question.

(The writer is a senior journalist.)