It takes a village to break free of party affiliations

In Rajnath’s constituency, vote is for him, not party

Bholanath Yadav, left, Rajnath Singh’s classmate, and Awdhesh Singh Yadav, right, gram pradhan .

In Yadav-majority Bhabhaura, where Thakur families number fewer than a dozen, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is the toast of the village. Parshuram Yadav, who was six years the Minister’s senior in school, puts it this way, “We are all honoured by the fact that he was born in this remote village in eastern Uttar Pradesh. It is he who has put Bhabhaura on the map.”

This is election time, so who will the village vote for? “Barring the Dalits, we will all vote for the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] because the honourable Minister is from our village,” says Bholanath Yadav, who was Mr. Singh’s classmate. Even the Yadavs? Of course, the Yadavs say.

Parshuram Yadav explains, “After Independence, the village would vote for the Congress, then we used to vote for Charan Singh’s party, but after Rajnath

ji became Chief Minister, we have been voting for his party.” The current narrative of the BJP’s campaign is that only the Yadavs have benefited from Samajwadi Party (SP) rule.

“That is just Modi’s

chunavi [election time] stunt. He knows Akhilesh has worked for the poor, not just for Yadavs. He is trying to fool people but we believe in Rajnath Singh,” Parshuram Yadav says. “We vote for the man, not his party.”

If the Minister was not from this village, would the Yadavs still vote for the BJP? Bholanath Yadav is about to respond when Parshuram Yadav stops him: “That is a trick question: don’t answer it.” But later, he relents: “One should tell the truth. A few Yadavs will vote for the SP.”

Rajnath Singh is not just the pride of his village, he has brought benefits to Bhabaura. When IDBI Bank offered a sum of money under its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme to two villages, Bhabhaura and another in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency were selected.

But today, the money that was allotted has become a bone of contention.

In Bhabhaura, its youthful gram pradhan, Awdhesh Singh Yadav, and village elders meet under a thatched sit-out, discussing the status of an ongoing project being implemented by the Central government. “I hear ₹25 lakh has been spent on toilets for our village school,” says Bholanath Yadav solemnly. “But tell me, is it true that 25 children will be able to defecate simultaneously with these facilities?”

There is an embarrassed laugh, and then the explanation: no, ₹25 lakh has been sent to improve the school and only two toilets have been constructed.