OPINION

It’s lagan (marriage) time in Bihar and one should not wonder that why it’s giving sleepless time to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ahead of Lok Sabha polling in the national Capital on May 12. During the Vidhan Sabha polls in the spring of 2015, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had fielded around 15 candidates out of 70 from among Purvanchal migrants and most of them had romped home.

He had repeated the formula of empowering ‘Purvanchalis’ during the 2017 municipal polls and had managed to pip the Congress to the 2nd position. If the Purvanchalis are not present in Delhi on May 12 in full strength, bells could toll for the Aam Aadmi Party.

According to estimates, 33.5 percent of the total 1.36 crore voters across the seven Lok Sabha constituency are Purvanchalis. Their presence varies from 24 percent in Chandni Chowk to 41 percent in East Delhi. On the North-East Delhi seat, they constitute 40 percent of the votes, 37 percent in New Delhi, 34 percent in West Delhi, 31 percent in North-West Delhi and 27 percent in South Delhi. Today there isn’t a constituency in Delhi where ‘Chhath’ festival of Bihar is not celebrated.

Prime Minster is consistently focusing on creating and using psycho capital for transforming the modes and means of governance to make a new India along with the help of economic reforms and pro-poor policies. On the other side, the opposition is continually making vitriolic negative commentary on whatever the Prime Minister does or says  to preach or act unconventionally in order to make a difference to the quality of life of the people of the country, especially the downtrodden, the kisan, the labourer who deserve a chance to stand on his own through his own will and efforts with confidence when they can and ask for direct intervention of the state only where it is not possible to rise with self-help.. The opposition on the other hand is trying its level best to push the government back to the traditional regime of subsidies, doles and loan waivers and so on.

The old order of governance has produced a culture of putting the poor in the position of a client and the state and the political class into the position of a patron. The new path of making poor self-reliant by increasing their income through sustainable means is what is new in approach to tackle poverty, unemployment, access to health and education for all in an equitable and affordable manner today. The policy of state determined and state led change based on creating a huge class of beneficiaries of state sponsored charities created vested political interest of gaining and retaining power and legitimacy is an open secret of the past 60-70 years.

It’s said that politics is a great leveler. Last Sunday Atishi Marlena, the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from the East Delhi Lok Sabha seat held an unusual press conference to clarify her religion. She said that she was a Hindu Punjabi belonging to the Kshatriya community. Atishi, born to Marxist Leninist parents, who gave a surname extracted from the names of their ideological icons Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, pushing her caste identity is an indication that politics in India is a way bit different from what Marx, Lenin and their ideological heirs pitched for.

For instance, 1100 kilometers away at Begusarai in Bihar, where the country’s best-known Marxist Kanhaiya Kumar is in fray as Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate, the electoral calculations are all based on which side the voters of Bhumihar caste go. Kanhaiya, all through his campaign, despite swearing by the ideology of classless society has made no overt attempt to disown his caste identity.

Coming back to the national Capital, Marlena is fast turning from being a ‘child of revolution’ into a Punjabi-Kshatriya, a combination heard for the first time in the 25 years that one has covered polls in this country, because her voters could careless for her ideology and seek more about her community.

She pitching herself as a Punjabi-Rajput, because her mentor Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is a Kshatriya and the votes of his community especially in the Patparganj and neigbouring assembly segments are in good numbers. Not to forget that former cricketer Chetan Chauhan had contested from this seat in 2009 as BJP candidate and polled decent amount of votes, which had large chunks of his community Rajput ballots.

As one approaches the ‘finally made operational’ Signature Bridge from the trans-Yamuna area on a bumpy, ill-maintained road, on the left side is the premises of Delhi Government-run Industrial Training Institute (ITI). It was here two decades ago that Congress leader Sheila Dikshit had first made her presence felt in politics of Delhi.

In the winter of 1998 when the polls were held for 12th Lok Sabha, a political leader from Uttar Pradesh, unknown to the rough and tumble and more importantly machinations of the politics of the national Capital, named Sheila Dikshit was pitted against BJP strongman Lal Bihari Tiwari from the East Delhi seat.

Tiwari, a Minister in the Madanlal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma governments, was party’s Poorvanchal face as the voters from the region had started to make their presence felt in the national Capital. He had won the by-election from the seat about a year back by 1.5 lakh votes. Dikshit in addition to Tiwari, also had to counter the ‘influence’ of sidelined Delhi strongman HKL Bhagat.

Congress has promised in its manifesto to provide an assured income of Rs. 6000/-per month or Rs 72000/- per annum to the 5-6 crore poorest families if it comes to power and is claiming it to be the biggest assault on poverty. However, to many economic analysts and development experts, the idea is ill conceived and goes against the interests of the target group and development of the rural areas itself.

 Historically speaking, India has been experimenting with different approaches to employment and poverty alleviation, especially in the rural areas since 1960s till date including both wage and self employment schemes. Apart from the pilot projects, the schemes like RLEGP, marginal and small farmers ‘development scheme, Antyodaya, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana etc finally culminating in the legally assured employment for 100-150 days in a year under MNAREGA are some examples in place.