In MP's Balaghat, Voters Are Worried About Their Jobs and Farms

Balaghat (Madhya Pradesh): At more than 30 roof tile factories on the outskirts of Balaghat, the chimneys no longer spew smoke.

Flat roof tiles – a ubiquitous feature of all British bungalows in northern and eastern India – were manufactured in Balaghat for decades. More than 90 factories spread over about ten acres each had come up here in the 19th century, and were the main source of employment for people in the region.

The other source of income is agriculture. Though Nagpur and Gondia are next door, further types of perennial employment are hard to come by in Balaghat. And just like the tiles went out of fashion, agriculture too is on a steady decline. The sparse opportunities that are available are in the government sector, and the very low rungs of the unorganised retail sector.

When The Wire visits, it’s hot and the roads are deserted. But three days ahead of polling, the Seoni-Balaghat constituency has been bombarded with big leaders in their choppers. Chief minister Kama Nath has landed from neighbouring Chhindwara, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan is in Chorai village.

The BJP has denied a ticket to sitting MP Bodhsingh Bhagat, who has decided to contest as an independent candidate using the autorickshaw symbol. He has smartly put Atal Bihari Vajpayee on all his hoardings, and claims to have been done in by the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah dispensation. His stronghold, the Varaseoni area to which he belongs, will probably vote for him and by most accounts, he is likely to snare between 50,000 and 70,000 votes from the BJP.

Also read: Neglected Upper Castes Can Land an Upper Cut on the BJP

The interesting thing about Seoni-Balaghat is the composition of the clashing class. The mahagathbandhan has a candidate in old war horse Kankar Munjare, Congress has Madhu Singh Bisen and the BJP has former minister Dhal Singh Bisen. Besides Munjare, who is a Lodhi by caste, the other three are Pawars, another Marathi-speaking OBC caste from the area. Pawars are the dominant caste here in terms of the numbers, with more than two lakh votes, followed by the Lodhis with about one lakh. Then come the tribals and other castes.

Vishewar Bhagat has twice been the MP from the seat and it was widely believed that if the Congress had chosen him, the Pawars would have tilted towards the party. But he blotted his record by losing the assembly elections in December, and now is relegated to working for Madhu.

Vishewar’s clout in the region, though, is undoubted, and people perhaps saw him more as an MP candidate than MLA. At a hotel in the by-lanes near the main Bajrang Chowk, he says, “See the damage to the BJP is likely to be severe with Bodhsingh, but Munjare is also likely to take away some 70,000 votes which would have otherwise gone to the Congress. This makes the contest between Dhal Singh and Madhu quite tight. It will all depend on the day of the polling.”

Naresh Saraf from Jabalpur has been sent by Kamal Nath as constituency in-charge, and though as not sure-footed in his assessment as Bhagat, he believes the Congress will scrape through. “It makes a difference that Kamal Nath is now chief minister. He knows the area well and will now focus more steadily on the region,” he says.

A little distance away, in the BJP office, the party’s nagar adhyaksha Surjeet Thakur confesses freely that Budh Singh is causing some damage. “A lot of workers have left with him, after all he was the MP for the past five years. But local leaders have stayed with us and we are in a good position.” Uma Bharti visited the constituency on the last day of campaigning to sway the Lodhi votes, but most people even in the BJP office confess that they are in for a fight and a close finish.

Farm sector reforms is the carrot the Congress dangling for farmers of the region. In village after village, though, there are constant complaints that the loan waiver has not touched the farmers so far. The MP government has waived farm loans worth about Rs 7,000 crore, but its target of touching 56 lakh kisans has not even reached the halfway mark due to the paucity of funds, and that may be the dealbreaker for a lot of voters. Another issue may be the constant power cuts. The chief minister’s office is investigating whether this has been deliberate sabotage by the electrical board employees.

The bottomline: It’s a tough call in this constituency, owing to permutations of caste, and everything will depend on polling day.