For the past one year, the hoardings on all roads leading to the suburbs of the national capital falling in Uttar Pradesh displayed the achievements of the UP government. It is estimated that lakhs of vehicles and at least a million people cross the borders into the neighbouring Gautam Budha Nagar (Noida) and Ghaziabad districts.
These hoardings were of course hired by the UP government to target these daily travelers who are not restricted to just the two districts. They come, in addition to Noida and Ghaziabad, from the districts of Baghpat, Shamli, Meerut, Hapur, Amroha, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Hathras and Mathura. That’s over half of the 15 districts that make up politically volatile Western UP. These passengers daily travel to Delhi by road, metro and rail.
It was necessary to mollify that this was the section of voters of the poll-bound state who suffered during the year-long agitation of farmers who laid siege to the national capital. The blocking of the highway and lack of will on the part of the UP and Union governments, both ruled by the BJP, to clear the siege caused unprecedented harassment to the daily commuters to the national capital from these regions. They wasted hundreds of hours and gallons of diesel negotiating the year-long jams.
Unlike the era of former Prime Minister Chowdhary Charan Singh, Western UP today is not only about kisans (farmers), but also about the cosmopolitan population which has come to occupy the condominiums built in thousands in sub-cities like Noida, Greater Noida and colonies of Ghaziabad district like Indirapuram, Vaishali and Kaushambi bordering the national capital. In fact in the past two decades, especially after the crackdown by the Supreme Court in the MC Mehta case, the majority of the industries of the national capital, including the printing presses of all the major publications, have shifted base to UP’s industrial estates.
Following the delimitation of seats in 2008, the assembly polls since 2012 in UP have for certain given a ‘national’ flavour to several assembly seats in these districts. No wonder the BJP swept assembly polls in all these districts including those with an overwhelming cosmopolitan population. One of the reasons for the ‘Delhi-type-voter’, as they are referred to in the local parlance, going for the BJP was the anguish they had with the private builders.
While the real estate policies of the Samajwadi Party governments led by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2002 and Akhilesh Yadav in 2012 and Bahujan Samajwadi Party government led by Mayawati in 2007, spurred growth in realty sector, it made paupers of many of the investors. Worst affected were salaried class and small business entrepreneurs who took bank loans to buy homes in these apartment projects. While they were made to pay installments from the day of disbursement of loans, they were forced to continue paying rent as occupancy in these projects were delayed.
The BJP government on coming to power promised strong action against defaulting builders. While they did rationalise the real estate policies, their role in expediting the projects was not visible. Whatever relief came for investors it was by the Supreme Court monitoring the projects on its own. Nevertheless to the credit of Yogi Adityanath, he doesn’t face the allegation of being soft to Noida-Ghaziabad builders like his predecessors. Would this be enough to see a similar sway of the BJP among ‘Delhi-type- voters’, a question to which probably all contesting parties want a quick answer.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice