Halliya Bazaar sits in one corner of Uttar Pradesh; a road from this small hamlet of around a 1,000-odd people leads to Madhya Pradesh just 18 kilometres away. Bihar is not too far away either.
This is a particularly impoverished part of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Among the pot-hole ridden National Highway’s 7 and 135, there are still significant numbers of adobe and thatch houses. Unlike the northern parts of Purvanchal where brick houses, most of them relatively new, are the norm, here they are the exception. Also, there is a distinct lack of private educational institutions here, whereas over much of the rest of the State it appears that there are degree-level colleges every five kilometres.
The Mirzapur lok Sabha seat is one of the largest in UP, despite bordering the highly-concentrated chaos of Varanasi. That is because the seat lies at the edge of the Vindhyas, and although the soil is apparently fertile, the rocky sub-surface means that the water-table sometimes lies over 250 feet deep. This just 25 kms from the Ganga! Thus the population density is oddly low and the area has a high concentration of lower castes and tribals.
At Halliya, the Congress is holding a Jan Chetna rally as they induct local tribal leaders into their fold. There are demands from the Kol community for Scheduled Tribe status, which the community enjoys in Madhya Pradesh (MP). Boys claim that Kol families in the area marry off their girls across State-lines as Kols are better-off in MP. Demands are also made for a Government school and better medical facilities.
The Congress candidate here is the 36-year-old lalitesh Pati Tripathi, a strapping young man who is the scion of a century-old Congress family. Despite looking obviously tired he comes to the stage and promises that he will try and get as much done as possible, but the promise that the crowd, around a 1,000-strong claps the loudest at is that he promises to stay around, and not be a parachute candidate.
He has already been maintaining his promise. While the Congress was pretty much decimated in UP in 2012, Tripathi was a surprise winner from one of Mirzapur’s Assembly segments — Marihan.
Despite being a Brahmin and having the option of contesting from the family seat of Chandouli, Tripathi contested from an area where the Brahmin vote-bank was poor and won by 8,500 votes. Since then, he has planted himself at Marihan and lives in a farmhouse and his car number plate contains the number ‘399’ the number of the Assembly constituency out of UP’s 402 Assembly segments. “I didn’t really want a lok Sabha ticket,” he explains, adding, “I told the High Command that I should really work towards cultivating the area, but they decided that I had to contest.”
Tripathi’s father, Rajesh Pati, UP Congress Committee’s senior-most vice-president also had a stump speech ready. As the speeches carry on in the background, word filters through that the BJP has tied up with the small Apna Dal in this region with Anupriya Patel announced as the Apna Dal candidate from Mirzapur. “Imagine what message this will send that the BJP isn’t putting a candidate in the seat next to Varanasi,” says a Congress worker who can’t contain his glee.
Frankly, Tripathi has a tough fight here, Samudra Bind, the wife of a sitting BSP legislator is the Bahujan Samaj Party’s candidate here and is widely considered the favourite due to the BSP’s powerful caste-support.
Congress workers believe that Anupriya Patel can take away some of the Kurmi votes and make things easier for Tripathi, but even the most optimistic supporters at the rally give him a 50-50 chance of winning just now.
However, Tripathi is trying to change that. On the 90-minute journey back to Mirzapur as he drives along he continues to manage his legislative duties. A spring on the Shastri Bridge has failed and traffic needs to be diverted otherwise chaos will ensue; he calls the Superintendent of Police and tells him that. later, we stop at a religious function in a village outside lalganj held by the local godman. Tripathi gets down and mingles with the crowd here as well.
“I have a target of shaking seven lakh hands during the campaign,” he says, “I don’t have a very powerful handshake but my aim is to convert 50 per cent of my handshakes into votes.” His reputation of getting things done at Marihan is spreading, as recently he ensured that water from check-dams at Marihan was not diverted to the neighbouring districts.
Tripathi got Mirzapur covered under the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for Maoist-affected districts thus acquiring Rs 30-crore in additional funds, which have been spent on solar water heaters, solar lights, roads and other projects. In fact, 99 of the 110 villages in Marihan are covered under the IAP.
But what made Tripathi, educated at the exclusive Woodstock School near Mussoorie and in Canada, leave a cushy life to live in the boondocks. At a place, where as he narrates his story, data connectivity has not even reached. A car accident in 2007 which left him with a broken femur helped clear his mind and in 2010 he moved to Mirzapur and has lived in the area ever since.
“We have to evolve from voting on caste lines to voting for development, and people will only believe that when they see that,” Tripathi says. “This State needs a Congress Government again to achieve its full potential,” he adds. Tripathi is favoured by Rahul Gandhi apparently, but unlike many of the Congress vice-president’s other favourites, Tripathi has a local support base.
If the Congress is to rise again in UP, it will be thanks to the likes of Tripathi. Congress insiders claim that after the devastating results of the Assembly elections in 2012 that might take a long time. Tripathi knows that, he is as a friend puts it “married to his constituency”, if the Congress has a long-term future in this State it might well be led by the likes of Tripathi.