As Ramkhilawan ploughs his field, his wife shouts out to him that she’s going to the bank. Her neighbours have said there’s money in it. Ramkhilawan smiles wryly. This would be her fifth trip in as many days. The farmer couple has gotten by on credit so far from shop keepers and traders. Other farmers in Banda have done the same.
It’s been hard but Ramkhilawan is not worried. Local BJP workers have been telling him to hold on till the first week of January. They say the Prime Minister is going to make a major announcement for farmers, either a waiver of loans or a gift of cash, say about `5,000 to `10,000, deposited in each villager’s bank account.
In the popular imagination, the big announcement will be made when Modi addresses a mega rally in Lucknow on January 2. This hope is keeping thousands of farmers in Bundelkhand going despite the difficulties of by demonetisation.
It makes the upcoming election in UP unique. As I drove through Bundelkhand, the usual-suspects were in evidence: poverty, water shortage and labour migration, the normal fodder of all political animals at election time. The joker in the pack is demonetisation. Which way will it swing the vote?
Everywhere in Bundelkhand, a region with a considerable population of Dalits and backward classes, I found Narendra Modi’s Parivartan Yatra posters stoking the hope that windfall money will wing it into the bank accounts of the poor, and people’s antennae are cocked to the saffron party.
In contrast, the other parties are fanning the flames of difficulties brought on by demonetisation. While Congress posters shout “Modi teri tanashahi nahi chalegi’” slogans, the Samajwadi Party crows about the relief given by the Akhilesh Yadav government to those who died standing in queues at ATMs
and banks.
The demonetisation difficulties are real, of course. In Pukharwar, a remote village outside Chitrakoot that does not have a bank or an ATM, people are forced to walk 12 km every day to join the bank queues. Some said they have done the 24 km trudge four or five times so far. But the belief is that patience pays.
I met Devi Dayal as he stood over a pile of firewood he had chopped in the forest outside Pukharwar. It’s his livelihood. I asked him about demonetisation. “Modiji has done a great job,” he said. “All of us are facing problems but we are okay with it. It is great to see rich people hassled. Once the Prime Minister makes the big announcement in the first week of January, there will be major relief.”
Who told Devi Dayal that Narendra Modi would write cheques to the poor in the new year? “That’s what people in my village are saying,” said Dayal.
And how much would make the woodcutter happy? “Dus hazaar?”
At Manikpur, 30 km from Pukharwar, I saw the same eagerness. The Prime Minister’s decision of November 8 seemed to have rendered the upcoming vote in UP a straight deal between the voter and the parties wooing him. How much for my vote? Just the kind of election demonetisation was meant to rid the nation of.
“People are going to vote based on what assurances the Centre makes. All of us are waiting,’’ said a farmer Ram Sahay.
Farmers told me that BJP’s prospects in Uttar Pradesh solely depend on what Modi announces in the coming days. Even party workers admit this.
“We were told he (Modi) would make a major announcement when he addressed a meeting in Mahoba recently. But there was nothing. Now we are willing to wait for another 15 days,” a trader Vishwanath Tripathi, who also works part time for the saffron party, told me.
Increasingly, as reports come in of new currency bundles seized from the Rich while they stand in the queue for a few hundred, the impression gains ground that the goals have not been met. In Mahoba, a farmer Puni told me, “Many rich people have managed to convert their old currency for new notes by managing the bank officials. Politicians are also doing the same. But yes, I’m looking forward to Modi’s big announcement. As far as the Rich are concerned, I don’t think this demonetization has really made a significant impact on them.’’
At the local BJP office near Manikpur, a ‘chai pe charcha’ is on. The BJP leader of the area is away in Delhi to lobby for a party ticket. In his absence, workers meet up in the office to devise ways to keep channeling the demonetization reaction to the advantage of the party. In Bundelkhand, the strategy has been to build up anticipation of January 2.
“Some sections have been facing a problem due to demonetisation but we are telling them not to worry as a big announcement is going to come,’’ said Ajay Tripathi, a BJP worker. He and his fellow cadres have been going from door to door spelling out the advantages of demonetisation and how it will impact the common man and of course the “big announcement”.
Such an intense buildup brings forth the question what if the Prime Minister cannot or will not do as promised by his minions in this poor region. What if he is prevented by the election code or election politesse? What if his delivery falls short of expectations? Sure, this election is about Modi vs the Rest. But does he have up that designer sleeve?