Second Covid wave: Migrants going back can spice up panchayat polls in UP

The UP panchayat polls will be held in four phases in 75 districts from April 15. Return of migrants has added another dimension

Uttar Pradesh, which endured independent India’s biggest migrant crisis in the first half of 2020, when an estimated four million workers returned to the state following Covid-19 lockdown, is witnessing the build-up of a similar phenomenon with the second wave of the pandemic sweeping across major industrialised states, including Maharashtra, Punjab, and Delhi.

Even as the migrant labourers from UP, Bihar, and other northern states working in Maharashtra have started returning, albeit in smaller numbers yet, fearing a stricter lockdown and loss of livelihood in the coming weeks, the reverse migration of workers, who had returned to work in the later months of 2020, is expected to spice up the state panchayat polls later this month.

Voting in the UP panchayat polls, regarded as the world’s largest local bodies elections, will be held in four phases of the state’s 75 districts on April 15, 19, 26, and 29, and counting will take place on May 2. The process of nomination for the first phase has started.

While the return of migrant workers to their native villages can push up the voting percentage, it has added another dimension to these polls, wherein all the major political parties have this time fielded candidates under party symbols.

Omission and commission by the ruling parties, both in the work and home states of UP migrant workers, with regard to the loss of employment, lockdown management, economic hardship, Covid-19 deaths and health emergencies, apart from the subsequent relief and social security measures, will play a vital role in determining the outcome.

The UP government, which has claimed to have launched a gargantuan exercise to rehabilitate migrant workers by providing them livelihood, food, and medical support, will also need to rise to the occasion for the current second wave of a possible influx, and also keeping them in good humour in the run-up to the elections.

However, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident of doing well and gaining the confidence of the rural masses on the basis of its “stellar” performance over the last four years and the rural welfare schemes the government has launched despite the ongoing farm stir in some places.

“Our government took timely and extensive measures to provide succour to the estimated four million migrant workers following lockdown last year. The people have supported our policies and programmes all through these years,” BJP State Secretary Chandra Mohan noted, ruling out any possibility of a repeat of the 2020 migrant influx posing any challenge at the elections.

Talking to Business Standard, Basti district-based farm activist Arvind Singh said there was a steady increase in the return of migrant workers from other states, particularly Maharashtra.

“There is a fear among workers of getting stuck in their work states if there is lockdown like last year. They are returning to their villages in whatever way they can, mainly train,” he said.

He noted Maharashtra, Punjab, and Delhi had governments helmed by parties other the BJP, which is in power in UP. As such, it would be rather premature to forecast how migrant workers would vote.

However, he said the UP government had taken all possible steps to deal with the migrant crisis last year, and the rural populace was by and large satisfied with them.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) sounded critical.

“The Uttar Pradesh government has failed to make timely and proper arrangements to bring back its workers from other states after lockdown last year. The poor had to even walk hungry for hundreds of kilometres. I have been touring rural areas, and have found there is a palpable disenchantment with the ruling party,” BSP leader Harikrishna Gautam said.

Social historian and political commentator Badri Narayan said the influx of the workers would add to the political activity ahead of the polls and increase the voting percentage.

“However, I do not foresee any significant bearing on the voting pattern,” he said.

In UP, there are 826 development blocks and 58,194 gram sabhas.