Few cities have as high a Bihar-origin population as Kanpur does, and the BJP as well as its rivals have tried to reach out to them through Chhath Puja committees. The festival will come shortly after the elections and this is the season when the committees are at their most active. The BJP has made an estimate: nearly 40 per cent of the industrial city’s residents have their roots in eastern UP or Bihar. The party has, in fact, looked for a Bihar background within its own Kanpur Mahanagar unit, whose membership has reportedly swelled to 4.67 lakh after a recent recruitment drive. “We have been compiling a list of such members. They are being sent there,” said Satyendra Nath Pandey, media in-charge of the Kanpur BJP. Their task is to help the campaign, and cast their votes if they are registered in Bihar. The BJP’s district unit is trying to connect with others through the 72 Chhath Puja committees in a city. An estimated 3.5 lakh people take part in the festival every year, making it the largest Chhath Puja in Uttar Pradesh. The appeal to them is much the same as in other states. “Our workers are approaching these Chhath Puja committee members and request them to either go to Bihar or at least call up their relatives there and ask them to vote for the BJP,” district BJP president Surendra Maithani said. “Bihar voters in Kanpur are being contacted through SMS too.” The Congress has targeted at least one puja committee. “I have appealed to members of Shastri Nagar Chhath Puja Samiti to ask Biharis associated with it either to visit Bihar or to ask their relatives there to vote for maha gathbandhan candidates,” said Har Prakash Agnihotri, president of the party’s Kanpur Mahanagar unit. Before polling began, Agnihotri had met Congress workers and asked those who have votes in Bihar to travel there. “Leaders of the BJP and the Congress have approached me and urged me to ask my relatives in Bihar to vote for their respective candidates,” said Sheeshnath Singh, an office-bearer with the committee that holds Chhath Puja in Kanpur’s Central Park. Sheeshnath has lived with his family in Kanpur for 27 years but remains registered as a voter in Siwan, where voting is scheduled on November 1. “Yes, I am travelling to Siwan,” Sheeshnath said, without specifying whom he will vote for. “My brother-in-law has come from Siwan with registration forms for members of my family who have turned 18 and want to be voters in Bihar. I have also approached other Biharis and asked them to vote.” The Samajwadi Party too has taken note of Kanpur as a vote bank for Bihar. The SP is contesting 146 seats there. Party MLA Irfan Solanki has visited Armapur Estate, home to many employees of Kanpur’s Ordinance Factory. “A large number of Armapur Estate’s residents belong to Bihar. I requested them to take leave and go to Bihar and vote. SP workers are also approaching Biharis individually,” Solanki said. The BJP has made use of its workforce in other Eastern UP districts too. Workers from Varanasi, Chadauli, Mirzapur, Gorakhpur, Siddarth Nagar, Maharajganj, Deoria, Kushi Nagar and Balli are already in Bihar, party sources said. Most of them have been engaged in work relating to poll management so that Bihar’s BJP workers remain free for the campaign.
