The state of aspiration

But it is not just the landscape that is different; so are the people. Unlike UP and Bihar where every Ram, Rahim, and Ratnakar is ready to offer his opinion on the political scene and get into arguments with each other about the fate of the contestants, in Jharkhand people are more cautious, wary, non-committal. Although the BJP has an upper hand in the state (it had won 12 of the 14 LS seats last time), the phrase ‘barabar ki takkar’ (close fight) is heard almost everywhere we stop.

Elections are merely five days away and of the four Lok Sabha seats that the Golden Quadrilateral passes through, two have high-profile candidates. In Hazaribagh, external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha is pitted against the joint opposition (Cong-JMM-RJD-CPI) candidate Bhuneshwar Mishra of the CPI.

In Kodarma, the state’s first chief minister and BJP veteran Babulal Marandi is the candidate. His main opponent is Champa Verma of the JMM but sitting Congress MP Tilakdhari Singh is also in the fray. While ‘friendly fights’ — that oxymoron of Indian elections between JMM and Congress are taking place in more than one seat, the NDA alliance has come apart because the BJP refused to give a single seat to the JD(U) which has decided to fight five on its own.

While shopkeepers and youth hanging around the bazaars are BJP supporters, there is discontent in the abjectly poor villages in the state.

The contrast between the hi-tech machinery constructing the Golden Quadrilateral and the dismal poverty of the villages that line it is more stark here than anywhere else.

In Poapur village (Dhanbad district), there are no fields to till, no water to drill, not a single pucca home, and little food to eat. Most residents go to nearby towns to do hajiri (unskilled construction labour) and are particularly incensed that the ‘four-lane babus’ did not hire local labour.

‘‘We went to their camp and protested but they put 46 of us in jail,’’ complains Prem Chand Mahato. Kewal Rajwar claims that the sub-contractors were hiring ‘outside’ labour from Andhra Pradesh because they could be kept in camps and made to work longer hours for less wage.

Villagers in Danua (Hazaribagh) district make a similar complaint they have received no benefits from the highway. But Ganesh Vishwakarma of Danua also says the entire village was voting BJP.