Herds of uncounted elephants often raid Ashok Sonkar’s guava orchard but he has no complain to make. “They are lord Ganesha. Whatever I am getting to sell here is the gift from him only,” he says standing at his makeshift fruit stall outside his orchard near tourist attraction Jonha Falls. Many in the area are not any different where people want to change their destiny without changing ‘idols’.
The area, not more than 55 kilometers from the State Capital, is sandwiched between lush green mountain ranges and flowing streams and on the other quite busy rail line. Most of the villages along the highway are connected with pucca road and single phase electricity line. Most of the villages are dotted with pink coloured school buildings. Still poverty is omnipresent with little to explore.
“Railway has stopped the development of the area. My village could not get electricity because of the railway line. While on the other hand economic activities like crushers are not allowed due to forest. They are left with no other option but to go to Ranchi in search of some seasonal works. What will the MlA doIJ He is trying his best,” retorts Amit Singh Munda of Pahar Singh village.
Amit Singh is also the Gram Pradhan and presents proudly the figure that out of over 600-odd households just five per cent don’t have BPl cards, an obvious sign of people living in penury. He instead blames the Forest Department for not allowing the poor villagers to even excavate stones in their own fields and sell by making stone chips when asked about the role of the representative.
The constituency represented by AJSU chief Sudesh Mahto for last 14 years blames instability in Jharkhand for the poor socio-economic scenario and mostly spares the MlA for the poor show. The stretch between Ranchi and Silli town has least number of hospitals, industry or vocational institutes like ITIs and polytechnic leaving the young generation with no option but to migrate. Even works under NREGA is at dead end.
“Bijli road se kya hogaIJ My husband passed away 35 years ago and I have to go to Ranchi to work as masonry labourer. I don’t even get old age pension and Indira Awas,” says Sumi Devi of Jonha village but remembers only ‘banana’; the poll symbol of AJSU party and admitted to have heard “mukhymantri Modi” and is impressed by his talks of development through stability.
Nevertheless JMM’s candidate Amit Mahto, who was aspiring to be the BJP nominee before being denied ticket, is giving a close contest to the three-time former deputy Chief Minister. His chances of upsetting the apple cart of Sudesh Mahto was high had he been given the BJP ticket, popular sense one can get.
“Amit Mahto has been active for quite long in the area. But Sudesh is getting additional support of the BJP wave which is working as panacea for him this time. Amit Mahto has nothing but the negative support which is generated out of the anger against Sudesh which was quite high this time,” said Shrawan Mahto of Badki Tand. In was the close encounter which pushed the voting percentage to poll vault 74 per cent.
The resentment is not without any basis but lacks vent to disperse. Open ponds of ‘urbanised’ Silli town double as open bathrooms for women! “We have such a large industry at Muri by Birla but you can see the state of development here. Nothing more than some roadside dhabas and old business are there. We wanted a change but Narendra Modi’s call for kendra-rajya me ek sarkar has forced us,” said Ankit Aggarwal, a businessman. ‘Idols’ are hard to replace.