“Aap bhi chunave lel aaye hain? Ek toh katni, upar se e rauda. Chunav batiyayein ki pet dekhein? Koi neta aake pet bhar dega? (Oh, you are also here for the elections? This is harvest time and the sun is merciless. Shall I discuss polls or worry about filling our empty stomachs? Will any politician come and do it?),” says Manisha Kumari in curt Maithili-Hindi, spoken by the village folks in this part of central Bihar.
Her disdain is understandable.
Winnowing wheat on her small patch of land on a sweltering April afternoon, when temperatures go up to 42°C and heatwaves add to the discomfort, even the most courteous would have lost her cool.
Manisha’s husband Chhotu Paswan is a labourer in Delhi. But 30-year-old Manisha tends to her four children and in-laws, all living in a two-room thatched house at Brahmadutt village in Singhia block of Samastipur Lok Sabha constituency.
“We did not get any house under the (PM) Awas Yojana (Gramin). Earlier, they used to demand ₹5,000 bribe, now they are saying Modi jitega tab milega (you will get once Narendra Modi wins). I could not build a toilet at home because they demanded cut money,” says an angry Manisha, while other women working in the field nodded
in support.
By “they”, Manisha refers to the local mukhiya, panchayat secretary, block-level government officials and the “middlemen” hired by them.
Manisha was working up to a rhythm when her fellow women farmers nudged
her into silence.
Mukesh Paswan with the improvised vehicle on which he carries goods to eke out a living.
Asked whether she would vote, Manisha curtly replies: “Pata nahin (don’t know).”
At the nearby Harpur Pavra village under Phulhara panchayat, taps under a government scheme to provide drinking water to every household run dry.
“You can see the quality of work. The drinking water scheme stopped after some time. They must have made lots of money. But the handpumps are our best bet. We get clean and tasty water from the depths of 70 feet,” says Rashbihari Yadav, 45, a farmer.
Another villager Mukesh Paswan, who runs a modified cart fitted with a motorcycle to ferry goods, says he would surely vote considering the “election is for the nation’s good”. On his favourite candidate this year, he says: “Modi”.
Interspersed with several rivers, Samastipur is fertile and can yield three crops a year, including wheat, paddy, maize, sugarcane, chilli and a variety of pulses.
Decades ago, farmers here were much ahead of their times as some of them engaged in modern farming and cultivated sunflowers and tobacco. This, however, took a beating because of a lack of marketing, government support and rampaging middlemen.
When The Telegraph was visiting, most farmers were seen making most of the rabi season. Racing against time as the season of kalbaishakhi (nor’westers) is in the offing, the farmers were busy threshing, winnowing and storing the harvested crop.
There is a distinct indifference towards the ongoing polls.
“The harvest season is not an appropriate time to hold elections. No man or woman capable of working is free at this time. Once the harvest is over, we need to focus on selling the produce. Nobody can concentrate on the elections. This is the reason why Bihar is witnessing a low voter turnout,” says Shyam Narayan Singh, a progressive farmer of Babupur village under Warisnagar block.
The main contest on the seat, reserved for Scheduled Castes, is billed between NDA partner Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) candidate Shambhavi Choudhary, 25, and Congress’s Sunny Hazari, 33.
Shambhavi is popular among the women and seems ahead in the race, but Sunny, a local man by all variables, may pick up pace before election day.
