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In UP panchayat polls, lure of NREGA money fuels contest by Virendra Nath Bhatt

Elsewhere, people may be obsessed with the Commonwealth Games, but games of a different kind are being played in UP villages these days. Panchayat elections in UP are round the corner and these are being fought with an intensity not seen before.

The poll are still three days away and at least eight persons have lost their lives in the last 15 days in the polls-related violence. Hoardings dot countryside; feasts have become a daily routine; liquor, money and clothes are distributed freely; and candidates are touring constituencies in a large number of cars and SUVs.

In comparison, the Lok Sabha elections of 2009 and Assembly elections of 2007 were a sedate affair. “So much money and violence was not seen in those elections,” said senior BJP leader H N Dikshit.

Officially, all parties have announced that they are not contesting these elections. But candidates have put up hoardings, claiming blessings of Mayawati, Rahul Gandhi or Mulayam Singh, with their photos. Ministers, MPs and MLAs have fielded their relatives and are openly campaigning for them. There have been complaints of the misuse of official machinery.

An official in the State Election Commission said, “Violence was there even during elections in 1995, 2000 and 2005, but that was only on the day of polling. This time it began right with the poll notification.” The elections are being held to elect grams sabhas and village pradhans at the grassroots level, members of kshetra panchayats which constitute the middle rung, and the district panchayats at the apex of the panchayati raj system. The members of the khsetra and district panchayats elect the chairmen of these bodies.

The kshetra and district panchayats have often been regarded as a stepping stone to Assembly or Lok Sabha, but the scale on which senior politicians are trying to push their own people, often relatives, is unusual.

The increased level of rivalry in these polls is being linked to MNREGA, the launch of which by the UPA in 2005 has led to a quantum jump in the flow of funds from the Centre to village panchayats.

Although, technically, all decisions in MNREGA are taken by the gram sabha, in actual practice it is village pradhan and panchayat secretary who maintain control on its implementation right from the issuance of job cards. Over the past five years, since the introduction of MNREGA, there has been a dramatic change in the life styles of gram pradhans. Said Dikshit, “After the launch of MNREGA, the office of the village pradhan has become very lucrative. What was a trickle under the Jawahar Rojgar Yojna has turned into a windfall with MNREGA. Recently, I went to meet a pradhan in Purwa area of Unnao but I could not locate his house I used to visit for last four decades. In place of a small house now stands a palatial building.”

Dinesh Mishra, an official posted in Maharajganj district, said, “During the days of JRY, the pradhans graduated from bicycles to motorcycles. After the launch of MNREGA, they move in SUVs.”

These pradhans now have money and they spend it to gain muscle power and political connections. The stakes were never so high in the panchayat elections in UP.

Even before MNREGA, pradhans were involved in all rural development and welfare schemes and they got their cut. But money in MNREGA comes daily and it is much more than they received in any other scheme.

Official sources said that in the current year, as much as Rs 9,000 crore is going to be spent in UP under MNREGA. According to the Panchayat Raj Department, the allocation under MNREGA to a big village with a population of 25,000 could be as high as Rs 3 crore in a year and Rs 15 to Rs 20 lakh for a small village.

In kshetra panchayats and district panchayats, however, it is political power at local level that has drawn relatives of ministers, MPs and MLAs like never before.

Sadhna Singh, wife of Forest Minister Fateh Bahadur Singh, is contesting from Campierganj ward in Gorakhpur for member of district panchayat. Wife of Finance Minister Lalji Verma is in the fray in Ambedkarnagar. Panchayat Minister Swami Prasad Maurya is leaving no stone unturned for getting his wife elected as the member of the district panchayat from Rai Bareli. In Moradabad, Haji Akbar, Minister of State for Non-Conventional Energy has fielded his daughter Gulnar for member of district panchayat.

Vijay Yadav, BSP MLA from Thakurdwara in Moradabad, has fielded his wife Sumitra Yadav for member of district panchayat. In Bulandshahar, BSP MLA Anil Sharma fielded his teenage daughter and wife for the Zila panchayat election. His daughter’s nomination was rejected as she was found to be a minor.

From the opposition, Premlata Yadav, wife of Rajpal Yadav, younger brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, has been declared elected unopposed as member of the district panchayat. Ankur Yadav, son of the leader of the opposition in the UP Assembly Shivpal Singh Yadav, is also in the fray for election as member of the district panchayat from Etawah.

The elections will be held in four phases on October 11, 14, 20 and 25. The counting of votes will be taken up across the state on October 30 and the results are likely to be announced the same day.