The passengers aboard the Super fast (or not!) Vikramshila express to Bhagalpur, Bihar have a lot in common. Apart from a shared ambition to be the first to put their luggage in the storage space beneath their berths, they all have an active interest in the political situation in Bihar.
I am on my way to cover elections in the land of education (Bihar is the home of Nalanda and Vikramshila University). And as I board B1, my AC three-tier compartment, I find an interesting debate raging between the occupants of seats 17 to 24. My co-passengers on this 23-hour journey are decoding voting percentage and electoral trends, while simultaneously fighting for storage space.
A gentleman who is traveling to Jamalpur, an old railway town is singing paeans for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. He talks of all Kumar has done for the state, such as improving law and order, constructing roads, and building schools and hospitals.
Another passenger, Shailendra Kumar, a junior engineer working at the railways workshop in Jamalpur agrees that the law and order situation has improved drastically."The criminals are being shunned and development has become an issue," adds Prabhnashu Kumar Jha of Katihar district.
Even as these passengers praise the chief minister however, a few voices can be heard criticizing him for wrong candidate selection. "Agar shashak accha hai, tau sipahsalaar bhi acche hone chahiyae," (even as the administrator is good, the lieutenants should also be good) says Krishnanand Yajee who belongs to Bhaktiyarpur district.
The next topic of discussion is the Congress Party and the chances of it acting as a spoiler for both the National Democratic Alliance and Rashtriya Janata Dal. Arvind Anand, who is the owner of Anand Group Security Ltd Services, a security agency in Delhi says, "Congress fighting the elections on its own will definitely affect the votes of Janata Dal United and Rashtriya Janata Dal."
Strangely, even as there is a demand for Congress star campaigners such as Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, they have only recently started campaigning in Bihar (after the first phase is over and the second is due on 23 April), a state that sends 40 law-makers to the lower house of the Parliament.
While the AC compartment cannot be the ideal place to gauge voter sentiment, I am astonished to find quite a number of people going back to their native place to cast their votes. The compartment itself has a lot to offer for comparison. I find some college kids sporting Apple I-phones and diesel jeans. I also find an old couple, exhausted after their fight for treatment at AIIMS, returning back to the temple town of Deoghar.
But most tellingly perhaps is what I experience as soon as my co-passengers realize that I belong to the state. They insist on knowing my last name. Caste still plays an important role...
I am on my way to cover elections in the land of education (Bihar is the home of Nalanda and Vikramshila University). And as I board B1, my AC three-tier compartment, I find an interesting debate raging between the occupants of seats 17 to 24. My co-passengers on this 23-hour journey are decoding voting percentage and electoral trends, while simultaneously fighting for storage space.
A gentleman who is traveling to Jamalpur, an old railway town is singing paeans for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. He talks of all Kumar has done for the state, such as improving law and order, constructing roads, and building schools and hospitals.
Another passenger, Shailendra Kumar, a junior engineer working at the railways workshop in Jamalpur agrees that the law and order situation has improved drastically."The criminals are being shunned and development has become an issue," adds Prabhnashu Kumar Jha of Katihar district.
Even as these passengers praise the chief minister however, a few voices can be heard criticizing him for wrong candidate selection. "Agar shashak accha hai, tau sipahsalaar bhi acche hone chahiyae," (even as the administrator is good, the lieutenants should also be good) says Krishnanand Yajee who belongs to Bhaktiyarpur district.
The next topic of discussion is the Congress Party and the chances of it acting as a spoiler for both the National Democratic Alliance and Rashtriya Janata Dal. Arvind Anand, who is the owner of Anand Group Security Ltd Services, a security agency in Delhi says, "Congress fighting the elections on its own will definitely affect the votes of Janata Dal United and Rashtriya Janata Dal."
Strangely, even as there is a demand for Congress star campaigners such as Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, they have only recently started campaigning in Bihar (after the first phase is over and the second is due on 23 April), a state that sends 40 law-makers to the lower house of the Parliament.
While the AC compartment cannot be the ideal place to gauge voter sentiment, I am astonished to find quite a number of people going back to their native place to cast their votes. The compartment itself has a lot to offer for comparison. I find some college kids sporting Apple I-phones and diesel jeans. I also find an old couple, exhausted after their fight for treatment at AIIMS, returning back to the temple town of Deoghar.
But most tellingly perhaps is what I experience as soon as my co-passengers realize that I belong to the state. They insist on knowing my last name. Caste still plays an important role...
0 comments:
Post a Comment