Eastern Uttar Pradesh has no emotive poll issue

MANDATE 2004

This is the most confused election I had ever seen in my life," commented an eye surgeon at the Benaras Hindu University (BHU). An avid watcher of politics in the region, the surgeon truly reflected the muddled-up political scenario in the eastern Uttar Pradesh.

If the issues related to "bijli,sadak and pani" could set the agenda for polls in Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections and led to the resounding defeat of the ruling Congress, people's issues do not occupy centrestage here.

It is not because eastern UP has savoured the fruits of development. In sharp contrast, time appears to have stood still on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi.

Power outages in this holy city range from 6 to 14 hours a day. The condition of roads connecting various parts of the city and rural areas is much worse than what it was 10 years back.

Drinking water supply is irregular and faulty. But the trend is not only confined to Varanasi. In neighbouring Ghazipur, Mirzapur, Azamgarh, Jaunpur, there is hardly anything which could substantiate the India Shining campaign.

That the distinction among all parties is so blurred is illustrated by the support received by Shailendra Singh, a deputy superintendent of police who jumped into the electoral fray as an Independent candidate after resigning from service.

Singh had resigned after he was pressured by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav to go soft on Mukhtar Ansari, a warlord of east UP and an Independent legislator.

"I want to assess if honesty really matters in politics," Singh said while interacting with a section of the city's intelligentsia at the Gandhian institute.

Singh is undoubtedly a people's hero in this constituency so long as his image of an officer wronged by the politicians persists. Apparently, the whole episode is a telling commentary on the region's politics.

Varanasi's crime graph keeps on soaring as daylight murders have become a routine affair. At least a dozen gangsters owing allegiance to different political parties are on the prowl , killing and looting atthe slightest pretext.

That the government has sanctioned maximum number of bullet-proof cars for criminal-turned-politicians is only indicative of the malaise that had gone deep into the bodypolitic. People's affection for Shailendra Singh is seen as a reaction to this phenomenon.