The books stocked in Amar Pal Bharti’s shop near Hazratgunj in downtown Lucknow include tomes on BR Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram and other Dalit leaders. There isn’t a huge crowd at his Bahujan Pustak Bhandar, but he sells his books with quiet pride. After all, Mayawati, a Dalit like him, rules the state with authority. The Dalit memorials in the city have become centres of pilgrimage for those who were once meek and voiceless. The recent incidents of crime against women, financial irregularities in the National Rural Health Mission, murders of senior medical officers and controversies over land acquisition in Greater Noida rouse great anger in him — directed not at the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government led by Mayawati but her political rivals and the media for “trying to defame her through all means”. Dalits like him, he says, have benefitted immensely since 2007 when she came to power in Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time.
Mayawati has left no stone unturned to woo the Schedule Castes and Tribes like Bharti in the last four years. It may have been all under the radar, but it could prove deadly effective when the state goes to polls next year. They could be her bulwark against any anti-incumbency wave the current controversies may trigger. Mayawati has raised the developmental expenditure on the Schedule Castes and Tribes from 17.9 per cent of the total in 2007-08 to 21.7 per cent in 2010-11. It now matches their population of 21.2 per cent in the state.
Thus, in the last four years, each of the 2,500 Ambedkar villages (those where the Schedule Castes and Tribes are a majority) has received Rs 2 crore for public works. The plan is to cover another 2,500 villages in the second phase. For 2.2 million ultra-poor families (not just the Schedule Castes and Tribes), a pension of Rs 400 per month, payable to the lady of the house, has been instituted. There are liberal financial grants for the girl child in poor households. About 150,000 houses (two rooms, kitchen and bathroom) have been distributed to the urban poor free of cost. And, Uttar Pradesh has in the last four years appointed 88,000 teachers (28,000 in madarsas), over 100,000 safai karmacharis (sweepers) and 35,000 policemen over and above the normal recruitment. This has swollen the state’s rolls by almost 15 per cent to 1.5 million. As the Schedule Castes and Tribes are also often the poorest in villages as well as cities, it is reasonable to assume they have benefitted the most from Mayawati’s largesse.
Political pundits say that 36 per cent votes are required in Uttar Pradesh for absolute majority. The 21.2 per cent Schedule Castes and Tribes make up Mayawati’s vote bank. Are these people still with her? Even if they are, she still needs another 15 per cent or so to become the chief minister of the state for a fifth time. Udit Raj, president of the pro-Dalit Indian Justice Party, says that only those Dalits who belong to Mayawati’s community have benefited under her rule and others “have been clandestinely marginalised”. Since there’s nobody else to mobilise the other Dalits, they may well vote for Mayawati next year, he feels.
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This gap of 15 per cent, and the recent controversies, has made Mayawati’s rivals fancy their chances for the first time since 2007. In the last one week, the Yadavs of Samajwadi Party — Mulayam Singh, brother Shivpal and son Akhilesh — have come out of hibernation and held press conferences on the “breakdown of governance” in the state. Ajit Singh of Rashtriya Lok Dal has joined the chorus. The Congress, after long years in the wilderness, feels it could have a role in the formation of the next government in the state. Rahul Gandhi has done padyatras in the west and east of the state to mobilise support for his party. “This government is on its way out,” says Uttar Pradesh Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari. “The situation for the Congress hasn’t looked better in the last 25 years.” Bharatiya Janata Party recently put the firebrand Uma Bharti (popular amongst the Schedule Castes and Tribes) in charge of the state.
It is clear Mayawati can feel the heat. In the last few days, she has removed the heads of the Noida Authority, Greater Noida Authority and Yamuna Expressway — all under the lens for impropriety in land acquisition. Henceforth, her government has decided, companies will acquire land directly from farmers. The state, on its part, will guarantee annuity worth Rs 23,000 per acre for 33 years to these farmers; it will go up by Rs 800 per acre every year and will be underwritten by Life Insurance Corporation. Those who have already sold their land for new townships will get one-third of the “developed” land in addition to the cash compensation. The Central Bureau of Investigation will probe the murder of the medical officers. The Comptroller & Auditor General has been requested to look into the National Rural Health Mission irregularities.
Aware of the political fallout, Mayawati is in constant touch with key BSP workers. Mayawati’s office did not respond to a request for an interview. People close to her say that the crime against women could prove bothersome in the run up to the next elections; she had after all come to power on the popular crib that there was complete breakdown in law & order during the Samajwadi Party regime. Some disillusionment has set in. Kiron Chopra of Chopra Retec Rubber Products, an automotive components company, feels left out: “We had hoped this (the last four years) would be the golden era for Uttar Pradesh, but the plot seems to have been lost so far, or centred on just a particular segment of development.”
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“Because this is Uttar Pradesh,” says Chief Secretary Anoop Mishra, “Perceptions hide a lot of the good work that we have done in the last four years.” Uttar Pradesh is one of the few revenue-surplus states in the country (Rs 3,500 crore in 2010-11). Its public debt has come down from 42.7 per cent in 2007-08 to 38 per cent of the gross state domestic product in 2010-11. Its fiscal deficit in 2010-11 was a healthy 2.7 per cent of GSDP. In each of the last four years, Uttar Pradesh has utilised over 95 per cent of the Plan expenditure. The state, claims Mishra, has gone for ways & means advances (to bridge short-term liquidity gaps) from the Reserve Bank of India for all of 16 days in the last four years, and not even for a single day in the last 16 months.
That may be fine. But it’s also true that several ambitious projects of the Mayawati government are languishing. The Yamuna Expressway is hugely delayed because farmers who sold their land now want more money. Mishra says that the first phase will be opened for traffic in October, and the full stretch from Greater Noida to Agra by January next year. The Ganga Expressway connecting east and west Uttar Pradesh hasn’t taken off the drawing board. Both the projects were based on the “land for development” model — the builder is allotted extra land for developing the project. “It is a kind of viability-gap funding,” says Mishra. “It is a workable model.”
The feverish real estate development in Greater Noida has come to a standstill with the Allahabad High Court ruling that large chunks of land acquired from the farmers on unfavourable terms should be returned to them. According to Mishra, only 45 to 50 per cent of the acquired land can be sold to the builders because the rest goes for utilities like roads, sewage etc. Also, the state government has to recover the investments made in such infrastructure. Hence, it is sold at a higher price to the builders. “Land acquisition,” says he “was never a source of revenue for the state; it was at best marginally profitable.”
The proposed second airport for Delhi at Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway is stuck in political crossfire between BSP-ruled Lucknow and Congress-ruled New Delhi. The Uttar Pradesh government had made a case for the airport on the grounds that the existing airport will run out of capacity by 2015-16 if the traffic grows at 14 per cent per annum. Delhi International Airport Ltd, a GMR company, on its part said the airport will hold till 2025-26. “The rule is that air traffic grows at twice the rate of GDP growth. So, it should be growing at 17 per cent this year. If Mumbai can get a second airport, why can’t Delhi,” says Mishra. GMR of course has the first right to develop any airport within 150 km of Delhi, provided its bid is within 10 per cent of the lowest quote. “This airport has to come up,” says Mishra. “Why wait till the current airport runs out of capacity?”
Mayawati also had plans to get the private sector involved into healthcare. Her plan was radical: She had selected four districts where the main hospital and some block hospitals and primary health centres in villages would be handed over to private healthcare providers on 35- to 50-year concessions. All out-patients were to be treated free of cost, and 50 per cent of the beds were to be reserved for people below the poverty line. Though large chains like Fortis, Max and Apollo had shown interest, the scheme has been put on the backburner and is unlikely to be revisited before the next assembly elections.
There have been some gains in power, though. Uttar Pradesh has added 1,200 Mw of capacity in the last four years, and another 3,000 Mw is expected to come up over the next one year. Steps have been taken to privatise transmission and distribution. After Agra, last-mile connectivity may be handed over to the private sector in Kanpur.
Still, Bharti, the bookseller, is hopeful for Mayawati in the next elections. “BSP may not be able to repeat its 2007 feat (when it got absolute majority), but Mayawati will certainly form the next government as the BSP cadre remains committed to her.”
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