All politicians have cheated us. They are deceitful dacoits while he is an honest dacoit. He doesn’t harm common people like politicians do.” That’s Dayaram Raikwar’s take on dreaded dacoit Ramkumar Thokia.

“We find him better, and then we have to live in the same ravines where his writ runs,” he adds. Implicit in his views is the intention to vote for Thokia’s mother Piyaria Devi, contesting from Naraini as a Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate. Raikwar is not the only one with such plans for polling day. Disillusionment with political parties and dread of the dacoit have brought scores of Dalits in at least 42 villages in the constituency in Bundelkhand’s Banda district to a stalemate: they appear to have a choice but don’t actually have one.

People in these villages were traditional BSP voters but are now tilting towards Thokia’s mother. Everyone knows she is just a front for Thokia, the ‘real’ candidate, but they are disappointed with Mayawati, who, they say, is “now in power politics” giving tickets to Brahmins as a caste and jettisoning the very purpose of setting up a party for the Dalits.

It isn’t just fear that’s rallying the people to the RLD cause. “Thokia extracts tax from the government contractors, but doesn’t disturb us. When we approach him, he is ready to help us. Politicians don’t, not even the BSP,” reasons Raju Prasad Verma in Naughawan village.

Verma talks from experience. He shows off the handpump installed in his village and says he paid the local MLA a “commission” for the work. But would Thokia be better? “When he came here to campaign, he promised us that those who are denied benefits under government schemes could meet him. I believe he will be effective since he has suffered injustice and his sister was raped, forcing him to become a dacoit,” says Raikwar.

... contd.