As candidates nurse their aching heels and soar throats rounding off their less than a month long political campaign, the people of this erstwhile princely state is relying on conventional wisdom to know which are the contestants rallying most on the sensex of ‘hathaais’ before exercising their franchise on April 17 and 24. A hathaai is equivalent to a ‘chaupal’(a community building or space in the rural areas), which takes place late night in the old parts of the pink city to discuss burning issues and, since the elections are in full swing the chatter in the groups range from candidate’s individual performance to political arithmetic of the Lok Sabha seats.
In the narrow lanes of Kishan Pole, residents engaged in conversations are of the view that Brahimn votes are swinging in favour of Congress veteran C P Joshi who displaced sitting Congress MP from Jaipur (rural) Lal Chand Kataria to escape strong anti-incumbency in his home constituency of Bhilwara.
Hathaais sprout lanes, adding to the night life of the old city. The chat among a group of 20 persons drawn from different segments of age, economic and social background grows to drag Jat community voting pattern.
One of them said the Jat voters - dominating 6 out of 8 Assembly segments - may not ease his teething battle against BJP candidate Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the Army’s Olympic fame marksman who has taken a plunge into politics. Another observed that traditional Congress electorates, Malis, may vote against Joshi this time because of some bickering with the OBC community leader and former state chief minister Ashok Gehlot.
Away from television debates that shadow content with lung power, the aam admi’s electoral analysis, at another sitting, was over voting patterns in different constituencies, witnessing keen direct contest between the Congress and the BJP. In Ajmer, Barmer and Nagaur LS seats, a participant said Muslim votes will go to the Congress despite the BJP’s attempt to talk about development and employment. An elderly man chips in with his wisdom that the Rajput votes are likely to impact outcome in, Barmer, Jodhpur, Nagaur and Chittorgarh constituency following Jaswant Singh’s humiliating exit from the BJP.
Jaswant is fighting as an independent candidate from his family seat of Barmer.
The participants however, maintain that it is not Modi wave, but people’s yearning of change that may play major role in change of guard at Delhi. They are quite vocal of their opinion making hathaai an interesting place to understand the pulse of voters in the 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. The gathering goes on and on, and metres away another section sits on a mat spread over a flat elevated concrete protruding from quarter of matchboxes like houses, discussing the rout of Meena’s dominance in 2014 election.
Litmus Test for Raje
Without disclosing his name, a middle-aged man said that Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s credibility is at stake in this election because of discontent in the BJP’s cadres over ticket distribution in some seats.
“If the BJP does well, she will have 5 peaceful years but if ‘Mission 25 fails, she may find difficult to sail through,” he added.
Another participant shared a previous night account to give an insight on how the BJP and Congress candidates are luring voters through night campaigning in certain areas famous for voting for the parties that allegedly distributes cash and kind. They also enquired from each other whether they had got “peela chawal (raw yellow rice)” -- traditionally considered as auspicious -- from political parties or candidates inviting to vote for them. The juicy exchanges referred to the interesting content of a pamphlet, slipped into morning newspapers, landed at the doors of their residences. The pamphlet, size of standard notebook, speaks about sitting Jaipur city MP from Congress Dr Mahesh Joshi achievements.