The BSPs sweep in Bundelkhand in the 2007 Assembly polls was apparently hard-won. People here still remember the painstaking work of political mobilisation by the party in what is known to be one of the most parched and backward regions in the country,home to farmers suicides and that dire and untranslatable slogan Khasm mar jaaye,gagri na phoote. In the 2007 Assembly elections,of the 21 seats in Bundelkhand,the BSP won 14,SP four,and the Congress a mere three. Mayawati rewarded the drought-stricken region by including as many as seven ministers from Bundelkhand in her government. Two years later,there are two curiosities in Bundelkhands Hamirpur constituency: Will the BSP repeat its 2007 performance? And,who will the districts substantial Lodh population back ? Several non-Dalit voters in this faraway corner of UP are vehement that the vote for the BSP in 2007 was actually a mandate against the SPs misrule. It is a myth that Pandits voted for the BSP, says Raja Pande,a social worker in Muskura. We only voted for Mayawati to defeat the SP. He recounts an episode that may have been the last straw: In 2007,when the SP lost the zilla panchayat election to the BSP,women were abducted,taken away in jeeps allegedly by henchmen of the then ruling party even as the administration watched. In the Assembly elections that followed soon after,says Pande,the people struck back at the SP. At that time,anger with the SP consolidated a diverse coalition behind the BSP, agrees Sushil Lodhi,a farmer. No more,he says. In these parts,the SPs goonda raj is seen to have made way for the Syndicate,which levies the goonda tax. The goonda tax is levied,among other things,on sand mined from the river bed that is sent out from Bundelkhand to be used as construction material. Estimates of this illegal tax vary from Rs 1,700 to Rs 2,000 per truck. It has been suspended a couple of months before the elections. The Syndicate is the faceless entity that pockets the loot. It is the administration-thekedar nexus, explains Arun Nagaich,an advocate in Rath. It all goes into the BSPs party fund, says Naresh Rajput,a farmer in the nearby kasba of Muskura. So now that the BSP wave of 2007or the anti-Mulayam consolidationappears to have receded in the region,will the Kalyan effect work in places like Lodh-majority Rath? Will the gain in Lodh vote for the SP in such areas offset any losses the party may have incurred in the Muslim vote on account of Mulayams pact with Kalyan? We will not follow Kalyan Singh because for us there is no going back to the SP, says Veer Singh Rajput,a Lodh,who lives in Muskura. At least the Syndicate does not beat up people. In the SP regime,we lived in fear of lumpens. Kalyan is unlikely to sway the Lodh vote in this area for at least two reasons,according to Balveer Singh Lodhi,retired principal of the Swami Brahmananda Inter College in Rath. He is not seen as the tallest Lodh leader in a region that still remembers and respects Swami Brahmananda, he points out. As MP from the Jan Sangh from 1967-1977,the Swami is known to have stood up to Indira Gandhi in Parliament. Moreover,Lodhs will always prefer to vote for their own kinsman, says Lodhi. Rath,he points out,has never elected a non-Lodh to the Assembly since Independence. In this Lok Sabha election,the only Lodh candidate in the fray belongs to the BJP. Kalyan Singhs effect may always have been overestimated in this area,others say. In the 2004 parliamentary elections,though Kalyan campaigned for the BJPs Lodh candidate,he forfeited his deposit. Further,Kalyan may have changed sides too many times. A section of Lodhs may have followed Kalyan from the BJP to the RKP and back to the BJP. But the switch to the SP is one switch too many, observes Sheikh Ahmed,poet,writer and retired principal. It may not yet have acquired a critical momentum,but the demand for a separate Bundelkhand is also likely to cut into the Kalyan effect the SP is banking on. While Mayawati has openly argued for a division of UP,Mulayam has insisted that there is no need for a separate state. If Hamirpur is any indication,the BSP can no longer bank on the kind of consolidation of support from diverse sections of the electorate that swept it into power in 2007. For the SP,the Kalyan effect may not travel well in all parts of UP with a significant Lodh population. It may well be necessary to revise notions of a monolithic Lodh vote that will unresistingly follow his lead.
