Gaurav Panwar doesn’t trust any party.

A school teacher in Rajasthan’s Tonk, Panwar considers himself privileged. He is the son of a police officer and well educated. He even did an MBA in Pune. He sees his contemporaries as a “lost generation” — many of whom took to peddling drugs for income. Panwar’s only motivation to vote is that one day Sachin Pilot may become the chief minister.

Congress’s Pilot, who is recontesting from Tonk, leads one of the two main factions of his party in Rajasthan. He was sacked as deputy chief minister after rebelling against chief minister Ashok Gehlot. But he remained with the party.

“Both the Congress and the BJP have only filled their pockets when they were in power. They did not create any industrial base here. If only they agreed upon the rail line, some progress would happen here,” said Panwar, referring to almost a decade-old dispute between the state and the Centre over cost sharing for the rail line from Ajmer to Sawai Madhopur that would pass through Tonk, one of the three districts in Rajasthan that are still off the rail map.

The saving grace, according to Panwar, is that “no communal incidents have happened during these polls. It used to happen during election time”.

Almost half of Tonk district’s voters are Muslim, in a state where less than a tenth of the population follows the religion. Panwar and several voters alleged that this demographic character was a reason for governments overlooking the arid district in terms of industrialisation. Around three quarters of the Tonk Assembly seat’s electorate are Hindu, with Gujjars — Pilot’s community — being the main rural landowners.

“People are angry with Gehlot for ignoring Tonk. The BJP candidate’s (Ajit Singh Mehta) only qualification is that he is a local. When he was MLA, he was also unable to do much. In Jaipur, no one respects leaders from Tonk,” Panwar claimed.

Pilot’s family hailed from Uttar Pradesh.

“But Gehlot won’t live forever. Sachin is a national leader and the only hope is that if he ever becomes chief minister, there can be some development of this place,” Panwar said, drawing acknowledgement from those gathered around him at an auto mechanic workshop on the outskirts of the town.

In the village of Soran, where Jats and Gujjars own most of the land — there’s no love lost for Pilot. Ladu Jat, who said he is almost 100 years old, points at a patch of slush and dung when asked about the performance of the Congress government.

“This is supposed to be a road under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. The boundary of the village pond also has collapsed. Now for the last two weeks, politicians are coming to us like migratory birds. Sachin’s convoy also drove through and he waved at us. None of them gave any assurance as to when these things will be fixed,” he said.

His neighbour Shankar Lal Gujjar said: “Our sarpanch (from the Congress) is inefficient and panchayat members ask us for bribes to fix anything. The engineers build things that crack soon. Sachin is good but if the government doesn’t do what he says then why will we vote for Congress?”

The Congress government has brought out a wide range of welfare schemes. The popularity of these schemes varies from village to village according to the reported efficiency of the local panchayat. While the universal health coverage Chiranjeevi scheme and the old-age pension were widely used, there is little awareness of other schemes like the unemployment dole. Panchayat corruption and the lack of clarity or delivery of the schemes was cited as the main reason for anti-incumbency by most voters.

In the town, a deeper angst is revealed that no scheme has touched upon. “They’re only bothered about Muslims,” said Kalu Ram, who now sells vegetables after his land on the banks of the Banas river has become infertile because of excess sand and gravel mining from the river bed.

Ram and those around him at the Chhavni Chowk narrate a litany of woes against the perceived appeasement of Muslims, most of which could not be sustained with facts. These boiled down to a singular narrative of the lack of economic opportunities and the suspected ability of Muslims to perform well despite the crunch.

“I have spent Rs 15,000 in litigation to remove these Muslim hawkers from outside my shop,” said hardware seller Pushkar Raj Sharma. “If Congress remains, they will sit on our head.”

When Mohammed Nasif is not working on farms at home in Yusufpur Charai, he goes to work as a welder in Jaipur. His hopes are pinned on a new medical college coming up in the village. “Yes there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said pointing at the road still being laid to the college site.

“There are water pipelines without water yet. But there is peace. For five years, there have been no riots because Sachin ji talks to people and ensures that disputes are resolved fast. At least those who can use a mobile phone, learn about the welfare schemes and get their benefits irrespective of religion or caste, he explained.

Nasif admitted that his village has better access to schemes because his sarpanch Shankar Gujjar is more efficient and honest than his contemporaries in neighbouring villages.

South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri of the BJP, who made bigoted remarks against BSP MP Danish Ali in Parliament, is the BJP's incharge for Tonk district. He said at a rally here last week, “PFI people are caught, who feeds them? The people who sit in Tonk. So Lahore’s eyes are focused here. So we will have to see whether laddus are distributed in the country or in Lahore after the polling on November 25.”

“Sachin Pilot is very good, he works like he is the CM. He should be the CM,” said Devi Lal in the village of Chhan Bas Surya.

Gujjars, such as Devi Lal, whom this paper spoke to hadn't heard of Bidhuri--also a Gujjar.

“Modi needs to rule India because he has made foreigners respect us, and keeps the country safe. But in Rajasthan we need educated people like Pilot because he understands that we need more colleges and ITIs here. All parties promise sops, but what we need is for our young people to do something after they finish school so they can earn money and live well,” he added.