 "villagers")
Amid the heightened threat of violence in the Lok Sabha polls, four Business Standard journalists - Jayajit Dash, R Krishna Das and Satyavrat Mishra, Sahil Makkar - travelled to Naxal bastions in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand to gauge the political mood in the 60 Naxal-affected parliamentary constituencies across 9 states
Going against tribal custom, 51-year-old Maan Singh of Maolipadar village in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district is planning to break away from his joint family. Third among five sons, Maan Singh inherited one-and-a-half acres of land without paperwork. He grows rice but can't sell it at the minimum support price.
"I don't have a land deed and the society refuses to buy my crop," he says. His stock piles up as the state government's bonus for paddy skips his farm. And, Maan Singh is not interested in another scheme that makes its way into most parties' manifestos. "I have stocks; why should I buy rice for Rs 1 (a kg)," says the farmer who lives near the site of a Naxal ambush of a Congress convoy last May that wiped out some of the party's top state leaders.
Food-for-vote schemes do not seem be working in the Red Corridor - 88 districts facing widespread Naxal insurgency across Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. And, a creaky delivery mechanism is eating away at the political gains of central handouts.
Dev Narayan of Baganpal in Lohandiguda block of Bastar holds a job card under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). He avoids working for the scheme. "There is no certainty of payment. I prefer working outside, so that I can earn daily," he says. (Profiles that could swing the polls)
Paiko, a woman in nearby Dharayur, is not so lucky. In the past two years, she has not been called to work even once.
"The Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana is not operational," says Basudev Pangi, a farmer in Erasantaguda village in Odisha's Koraput district. "No one has secured forest rights here," adds Sudhir Meleka of Balipeta, another village in the district.
Where they do work, schemes like housing aid, employment dole, school meals and pensions do not easily translate into votes. Most voters are unaware these are schemes operated by the United Progressive Alliance.
People across the corridor are clamouring for roads, water, health care and electricity that are held hostage in equal measure by Naxal violence and political apathy. Mohammad Muzafar Ali, 21, of Sarju village, 25 km away from the dusty town of Latehar in Jharkhand's most feared Naxal district, has been demanding a mobile telephone tower. Villagers now either walk three km down a treacherous hill or climb a tree to receive a patchy signal.
"This is the most significant issue for Sarju and its surrounding villages in these elections," says Ali, a first-time voter. "If a person is ill, his relatives walk down some distance to request for a vehicle."
The two-hour motorcycle ride to the village is bone-jarring and snakes through dried rivulets, tiny hamlets and paddy fields. The surrounding hills hide the Naxals. The area is now described as a 'Liberated Zone'. Till four years ago, according to the state government's admission, Maoists had the run of the place.
In November, Koleng village in Bastar boycotted the Assembly election because its 20-year-old demand for a road had gone unheeded. On polling day, Naxals opened fire on the booth. The firing continued through the day. Koleng's boycott was in vain: The authorities blamed Naxal violence for the no-show. "Politicians at the state or district level hardly ever visit remote villages. Villagers get influenced by block-level leaders at the time of voting. Both money and intimidation are applied to woo voters," says Bhaskar Niale of Mathlamba village in Odisha's Rayagada district.
The disenchantment is palpable in Jharkhand's Palamu parliamentary constituency, where voters worry about closed mines, employment and migration to cities.
"Voters in these districts don't realise the value of their votes," says Shalender Kumar, a social activist and resident of Daltanganj. They look at short-term gains knowing they will not get much from politicians in the next five years.
"In the last election, supporters of a candidate took many villagers away and made them drink all night. They were repeatedly shown talaa and chabbi (lock and key) - the candidate's election symbol. Next morning, they went to the booth dancing and singing talaa, chabbi, talaa, chabbi and pressed the ballot button," recounts Anil Kakreti of Karma village.
The parties, of course, pay lip service to development. "Most of the people who win elections or make promises never come back to check on us," says Ram Nandan, 64, who runs a small eatery in Sarju village of Latehar district. His reference was to Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who had visited the area two years ago and announced a Rs 400-crore Sarju development action plan. Most of the work is yet to start. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led state government shares some of the blame for the delay.
If development is a chancy election plank, parties can always fall back on tested formulae, in which caste equations play a big part.
Almost all parliamentary constituencies in the Red corridor passing through Bihar have a sizeable number of backward caste and minority voters. In most of these constituencies, parties have named candidates from the dominant caste in the region. In Gaya (a reserved constituency), all three major parties - the Janata Dal (United), the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal - have fielded or are expected to field candidates from the Manjhi community.
"Roads, health services, education and corruption are big issues in this part of the state, but leaders are more interested in vote-bank politics," says Premendra Mishra, a local journalist from Aurangabad, a heavily Naxal-affected district of Bihar.
Manish Kumar from Jamui district says the local MP has "spent only Rs 6 crore of the Rs 22 crore allotted to him under the MP's Local Area Development Scheme.''
Political parties say they have not forgotten development. A BJP poll manager in Bihar says, "Our whole campaign is based on development. We want Bihar to be as developed as Gujarat. However, caste equations also matter. People want to see one of their own in Parliament. It gives them a sense of empowerment. You cannot just ignore it."
