Will ‘Gatisheel Ghazipur’ swing eastern UP for BJP?

CHANDAULI/GHAZIPUR: Approximately 50km from the Varanasi airport, the Baluaghat river bridge over the Ganga in Chandauli district offers a new option to commuters going to other parts of eastern UP, apart from the routine Saidpur-Ghazipur route.
PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the bridge in 2017 after it had been completed in record time. After years of neglect, the bridge has come as a lifeline for several districts of eastern UP and Bihar.

A few kilometers away is the Tarighat-Ghazipur roadcum-rail bridge, likely to be functional by year-end. It will connect Bihar and Bengal via Ghazipur to Gorakhpur and Nepal, promising an economic turnaround in the region. The Ganga bridge at Zamania in Ghazipur is another success story, seen as one of several feats of the “double engine Modi-Yogi” sarkars.

“Such a road was unimaginable for us... it’s a dream come true,” says bike mechanic Arvind at Balua in Chandauli district, as he talks about politics with reluctance, refusing to outrightly disclose even his caste. At nearby Mahulia, Ravi Lal says the bridges and roads, as also the uninterrupted power supply in the region, are the hallmark of the current dispensation.

BJP candidates hope their development plank would prove sturdy enough to break the caste mould of the SP-BSP alliance, which is banking on the Yadav-Muslim-Dalit combine. Which way the eastern UP voter finally tilts would be known only on May 23, but there is no denying the fact that BJP campaigners have made people talk about development in a region where caste has always reigned supreme when it comes to polls.

“BJP’s propaganda machinery has created a situation in which people will think twice — whether to vote along caste lines or for development and the PM’s propagation of nationalism,” says Banshidhar Mishra of Chandauli. “We’ve been traditional SP supporters but we can’t ignore the fact our lives have changed in the recent past. Our entire village is backing Manoj Sinha,” says Sant Kumar Yadav, resident of Gaighat in Ghazipur’s Zamania tehsil.

People, irrespective of caste, do acknowledge that the region has witnessed unprecedented development along with changes in their lives thanks to the welfare schemes of the Centre and a few of the state, like free toilets, gas connection, and rural housing.

Union minister Sinha is pitted against the SP-backed BSP candidate, Afzal Ansari, brother of don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari. Sinha in his poll rallies talks about development and Modi’s decisive leadership whereas Afzal says his vote count begins from 9-lakh onwards as he claims to have the support of Dalits, Muslims and Yadavs.

However, the Sinha camp is making an abortive bid to polarise voters along religious lines and blur caste arithmetics by their slogan of “Gatisheel Ghazipur” — Sinha’s poll slogan boasting about the development during his tenure.

A slew of development and welfare initiatives, billed by the ruling BJP as “doubleengine” growth, coupled with the “Modi” factor is facing a litmus test against SPBSP’s caste maths in eastern UP, where polling is scheduled in the final two phases.

In the age of TV and cellular connectivity, these elections seem to have turned into a macro affair as people sitting in remote villages say that the LS polls are more about choosing a PM than the loss or victory of a particular party or leader.

In Chandauli, state BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey is facing SP’s Sanjay Chauhan, whose candidature is seen as an experiment by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to break BJP’s domination over the non-Yadav OBCs. Chauhan is a Nonia, which is among the most backward of classes.

However, locals say former MP Ram Kishun Yadav could have been a far stronger candidate against Pandey than Sanjay Chauhan, a perception similar to that in neighbouring Azamgarh, where people say that Ramakant Yadav as BJP candidate would have made Akhilesh Yadav struggle for every single vote.