Caste no yardstick for MP's farmers, 'kisan' identity matters more in polls

If anything, these elections have reset an identity which numerous farmers lived with in the past - as backward caste members. This time, they are voting as farmers - forward, backward, SC or ST

Narendra Yadav, 30, is a former ‘pradhan’ (chief) of Chowki village in the Sagar district, 172 km off Bhopal. Chowki is part of the Surkhi Assembly constituency, one of the eight seats making up the Sagar Lok Sabha constituency. Of these, seven, including Surkhi, were won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2013 election, and one, Deori, went to the Congress. Like most voters in Surkhi, Yadav, a farmer, was a BJP-adherent. But the sight of vast quantities of paddy spread over mats outside his home today disheartens him.

“I don’t know if this paddy harvested after hard work