She seems able to read their minds.
“People are saying that Julana is now recognised because I am contesting. I want Julana to be known for employment, for wrestling, and not for Vinesh,” Congress candidate and Olympian wrestler Vinesh Phogat tells the crowd of voters and fans in her home village, Nidana.
Unemployment had won this newspaper’s straw poll of electoral issues among those who had gathered in the village square, ready to sweat out the wait for Vinesh to arrive.
The other preoccupation of everyone here is wrestling. The village boasts an indoor gymnasium and wrestling akhada (arena), built mostly with voluntary contributions from its large-hearted residents.
On Monday, the villagers insisted on gifting dozens of bananas to the visitors who had come for Phogat’s meeting.
Jat peasants are the main landowners in Nidana, and several of them serve in the security forces. To many here, Phogat has redeemed their pride, wounded by the now-shelved farm laws and the Agniveer scheme of short-term recruitment to the armed forces.
“Jats or any other Haryanvis have little to be proud of. Some boys have even gone to Chhattisgarh now to work for a daily wage,” Nidana resident Ram Prasad told The Telegraph.
He went on: “I don’t know what exactly happened in Paris (where Phogat was disqualified from the Olympics for being overweight before her final). We feel proud that she did not lose hope and is fighting to change the system. She will make a good sports minister.”
Vinesh Phogat interacts with a villager while campaigning at Siwaha village in Jind, Haryana. PTI picture
At the Congress meeting, speakers allege a “conspiracy by (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi” to have her disqualified as revenge for the agitation she had helped organise against the alleged sexual harassment of wrestlers by then BJP parliamentarian and wrestling federation chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Members of every community in the village are called onto the stage to felicitate Phogat.
Every vote counts and while Jats are the dominant community in the Julana Assembly constituency in Jind district, the Scheduled Castes are 22.5 per cent of Julana tehsil’s population.
Agniveer has singed the Dalits as much as anyone else in Haryana — a major source of recruitment for thesecurity forces.
Ajay, a Dalit youth in Shamlo Khurd village, told this newspaper: “We all used to run every morning to prepare for army selection. After Agniveer, not as many of us are running. The preference now is for the central police forces.”
Ajay and his friend Bunty had been tasked by elders in the Dalit hamlet with mobilising youths for a BJP motorcycle rally, but they were having a hard time getting their friends out.
Asked why they were supporting the BJP, Ajay replied: “When there are no jobs, there is gratitude for anyone who helps. Four boys from our area got jobs as gramin dak sevaks (postal assistants), and one became an Agniveer under the BJP government.”
He added: “We aspire to higher jobs, for which we need to go to college. The nearest college is in Jind, but the bus service was stopped. So it is more expensive now as we travel on shared autos.”
Bunty said: “We all admire Vinesh Phogat for what she has achieved. We will see which party works best for us.”
This newspaper found almost all the meetings of the BJP candidate, Yogesh Bairagi, on Monday being held in Dalit hamlets. Also in the fray is Kavita Dalal, a WWE wrestler, on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket. Despite the physical proximity to Delhi and Dalal’s wrestling background, the AAP has little resonance here.
“She is not a pehalwan (a respectable word for ‘wrestler’), she is WWE (which is athletic theatre). The AAP has no presence here and even our Haryana parties like the Indian National Lok Dal and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) are out of the akhada (ring),” Dalbir Malik, an agricultural dealer in Julana town, said.
“The dangal (bout) is between the Congress and the BJP. If the AAP has a leader like Kejriwal here next time, maybe we will look at them.”
Incumbent MLA Amarjeet Dhanda of the JJP, a former BJP ally, too is finding it hard to attract crowds. Only half-a-dozen elders had gathered by the time he was supposed to address a meeting in Bhairon Kalan village.
At Dhigana village, at the other end of the potholed road, a schoolteacher who did not want to be named attempted a summing-up.
“There was some fascination for the BJP last time because of Modi, but even that has now faded. The farmers’ movement is helping the Congress,” the teacher said.
“The BJP says they will give Agniveers jobs after they retire. I doubt they will get anything besides jobs as special police officers or home guards. Can part-time or temporary jobs be considered equal to wearing the uniform of a fauji?”
Haryana votes on October 5