On The Ground In Gorakhpur: SP's Outreach To Nishad Community Is Running Into BJP's Welfare Policies

"Kuchu vi na kart rahlan taboo, abkiyo kaile na kaile, per garib logan bukahal na marat hauwe, na kamai ba na dhamai ba na naukari chakari ba te rasan te pet bhar milat ba. Votwa unahi ke dewe ka he. (Whatever else they do or don’t, at least the poor are getting enough ration. Whether they worked or didn't, their bread was secure. He (Modi) will get our votes)," says Marjadi Nishad as she squats with other ladies near a gumti (kiosk) in Gorakhpur's Rampur Nayagaon.

This is the sentiment that echoed across the colony near the Green City gate, a predominantly Nishad community settlement in the Gorakhpur Sadar (Urban) assembly seat, which has Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, fondly known as 'Baba' here, contesting for the first time.

Nishads have a significant presence in dozens of seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh, also called Purvanchal. At 15 per cent, the community is an attractive vote bank in Gorakhpur for all political parties.

In the Gorakhpur by-poll of 2018, less than a year ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Nishad Party, then in an alliance with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, had managed to defeat the BJP.

This defeat in Yogi Adityanath's bastion, which he represented in Lok Sabha for five consecutive terms, was a big upset for the BJP, which the party turned around in the 2019 polls. Between the two elections, the BJP had managed to woo the Nishad Party to its side. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, actor Ravi Kishan won from Gorakhpur on a BJP ticket.

After the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it was believed that the BJP would nominate Nishad Party president Dr Sanjay Kumar Nishad to the Rajya Sabha, but the party choose former Bahujan Samaj Party leader Jaiprakash Nishad, who joined the BJP in 2018. To mend ties with the the Nishad Party, the BJP nominated Sanjay Nishad to the Legislative Council in September 2021, just months ahead of the 2022 polls.

For the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP has given 16 seats to the Nishad Party. Its candidates are contesting on BJP symbol in five constituencies and on the party's own symbol in the remaining 11. Party leader Sanjay Nishad's 31-year-old son Sarvan Kumar is contesting from Gorakhpur district's Chauri Chaura vidhansabha constituency.

To woo the Nishads back to its side, the Samajwadi Party has been raising the issue of reservation for the community, a concern that doesn't seem to resonate on the ground in Gorakhpur Urban.

This is perhaps why the Samajwadi Party has fielded Shubhawati Shukla, the widow of the late BJP leader Upendra Dutta Shukla, who was as an influential Brahmin face for the party in Purvanchal. Upendra Dutt Shukla was the BJP's candidate for the 2018 by-polls in Gorakhpur, which the Samajwadi-Nishad Party alliance had won.

"The promise of reservation was made to the Nishads by the SP in 2012, which it didn't fulfil. The party had promised to give scheduled caste status to the kahars, dheevar and nishads. The BJP has said that emperical data is required for this. It is not possible till we have that data. The BJP will do this job," BJP's national spokesperson Prem Shukla told Swarajya.

The Samajwadi party leaders though reiterated that the Nishads were with them. Although, when asked about the Gorakhpur Urban seat in particular, they choose to instead focus on the party's two candidates from the same community in neighbouring seats.

"We're going to make two Nishad leaders members of the legislative assembly. The Nishad community is with us," Rahul Singh, the election in-charge of the Samajwadi Party in Gorakhpur Urban, told Swarajya.

But the BJP believes its welfare delivery and vikas will blunt the Samajwadi Party's outreach to the Nishads on the issue of reservation.

In Nayagaon, Parshad (councillor) Dharm Dev Chauhan of the BJP shows the newly-built concrete road which has become the spine of the entire colony, recollecting how he would earlier have to drive a tractor to distribute food grains to the villagers during floods.

“All of that is in the past and that is why we are confident that the mantra of ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’ will win us the support of every community, irrespective of what the opposition parties try to woo the voter with," says Chauhan. Women from the community nod in agreement.

Subhavati, Neeta and Kiran say that the ‘raashan’ that ‘Baba ji’ has given through the pandemic and to this day, twice a month, has ensured they and their children never had to go hungry.

As she sits there and strains the samosas from the hot oil kadhai and places them on the large plate awaiting customers, Subhavati says she is waiting to vote "to bring Modi ji back". Ask why and pat comes the reply: “Free main rashan de rahe hain aur Modi ji sab kuch kiye hain…ghar bhi diye hain, rashan bhi diye hain…sab ke khaate main paise bhi diye hain (Modi ji has given free ration, house and money, he has done everything).”

As Neeta rebuts and asks if Subhavati has been sanctioned a house, she explains to her saying, “Ghar bhagya se…na mile, mile..par paise mile ki ne (I may not have got a house but I've at least received money from the government)." The women nod in agreement as one of them says: "Haan gaanv main sab ko mila hai…rashan…hum log bahut khush hai (Yes, everyone in the village is getting rashion. We're very happy.")

Across the road is Shyama Devi, or ’Syama’ as she calls herself, resting on a charpai with her mother, in the front yard of a house that is being built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. When asked who gave her the house, she looks at the ward adhyaksh of the BJP Arjun Sharma, thanking him for it. "Hum thodi na karai, ye toh Modi Yogiji karwayein hai na (Modi ji has done it for you)," he explains, and Syama takes note, nodding in agreement. "That's why we will vote on lotus," she says.

"Pehle se des theek ba, pehle se jabana theek ba (the country is in a much better shape that before),"says Heermati, Saama’s mother, adding that ‘Modi-Baba’ have set right many things they didn't believe would ever be.

"Now we have to vote for this government given that it has given us a house and ration. Toh Kamal ke phool pe hi denge," says Roopam Devi, as she stands at the gate of her house across the street.

Just a few meters away, a young mother points to the newly installed tap that now brings clean drinking water right into their front yard.

These are women of the Nishad community vouching for the welfare schemes of the BJP governments in the state and at the centre that they claim have helped them sail through the pandemic.

A new concrete road runs through the colony for over a kilometre. It is perhaps for the first time in decades that the residents will not have to wade through knee-deep muck, their feet sinking in the ground often, their "cycles getting stuck" when the area gets flooded next monsoon.

"Vikas is visible, look at this road," said Marjadi Nishad too earlier, while lamenting that the bylane to her house is yet to be made. "But the floods (owing to the river bank closeby) will not be able to take away this concrete road, like it did the damar road all these years," she explained.

”Akhilesh ke time main ye sadak nai mila hum logonko toh kaise kahenge ke ye RCC humko mila hai. Jo banwaye hain unhi ko hum manenge na? (We did not get this road under the Samajwadi Party government. The one who got it built will get our votes),“ says Kamlesh Prasad, standing in front of his kirana store, listing out the ‘Vikas’ that has sees in Gorakhpur.

”We have got roads, drains and water,” says Prasad.

"Pehle se toh achcha hi waqt chal raha hai (times have changed for the better now)," the shopkeeper says, echoing the mood of the community.