Dust And Debates In Pilibhit: Local Opinion Divided Over Varun Gandhi, United On Modi-Yogi

Pilibhit is a difficult place to get to.

Google Maps says you can get there in six to eight hours by road from Delhi, but that's discounting the hassles one has to go through, especially if you are reliant on public transport as your main means.

About 318 kilometres away from the national capital — a direct train that goes to Pilibhit usually runs late and is booked out days in advance.

One has to either take a bus or a train to Bareilly and then hitch a slow and arduous ride using a mode of local transport to get there. It can be a bit scary when you get there in the middle of the night, as roads do exist, but lie almost naked. It's filled with potholes and gravel, and a thick layer of dust blankets it.

Just a few hundred metres away from Naugwa Chauraha, a couple of hotels offer visitors decent rooms to stay. Not a lot of tourists visit Pilibhit, except for some who come to enjoy the wildlife safari at the tiger reserve.

A few years ago, the tigers used to be frequently sighted entering villages — a problem that has been portrayed in Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga starring Pankaj Tripathi.

Pilibhit is also known for one more reason — it is the constituency represented by Varun Gandhi — its Member of Parliament in the previous Lok Sabha. This time, he has been snubbed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and instead, state minister Jitin Prasada has been fielded in his place.

We set out to find the possible reasons behind this change, and what people thought about this.

'No Development In Decades'

Pilibhit has five assemblies that fall under it — Baheri, Barkhera, Puranpur, Bisalpur and Pilibhit.

In almost all the constituencies, the biggest problems seem to be unemployment, and delays in payments to sugar mills, who in turn do not pay the employees on time.

Many locals are dependent on agriculture as a primary source of income. Their children travel to Bareilly to study, and when they are done, they leave home for Lucknow, Rampur or Delhi to earn a livelihood for themselves.

Almost all the locals Swarajya spoke to, complain of a lack of development in decades. The other branch of the Gandhis has represented Pilibhit for 28 years, with Maneka being a six-term MP from the constituency and Varun serving two terms.

Our driver — a Sikh man in his early 20s — says that the salaries in Pilibhit are low.

"It is considered a miracle if you can find a job in Pilibhit, but even if we do, we are paid very less. A friend of mine who works in a cafe that serves burgers and pizzas is paid around Rs 6,000 a month. What can we possibly do with that money? That's the reason I am driving cars in my free time. Most Punjabis here finish their studies and plan to move to Canada or one of the European countries where they may know a relative or a friend. I am planning to go to Italy soon," he says.

'Takkar Toh Hogi Iss Baar'

Dileep Saijna sells fertilisers to farmers in Pilibhit and is usually busy with his work for at least 10 hours a day.

He fondly speaks of Varun Gandhi and says that he is accessible to people in Pilibhit. But with Prasada being given the ticket, he is afraid that the SP may have a good chance this time, with the party fielding Bhagwat Saran Gangwar as its candidate from Pilibhit. Gangwar served as a state minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government back in 2013 and is a five-term MLA from Nawabganj in Bareilly.

Presently, out of the five Vidhan Sabha seats in the Pilibhit parliamentary constituency, only Baheri is represented by the SP. The other four seats were won by the BJP in the 2022 elections.

A few weeks before Prasada was announced as the BJP candidate, media reports hinted at the possibility of Sanjay Singh Gangwar being the candidate. Gangwar is currently the MLA from the Pilibhit assembly constituency.

Some locals, on conditions of anonymity, allege that Gangwar is arrogant and has been caught picking fights with mill owners in the region.

"You must write about this," the locals seated alongside Saijna insist. They say that the voters would have chosen to go with the SP if Gangwar had been fielded as the BJP candidate. They are sceptical of Prasada as a candidate because they feel that he may lose the battle if the votes are polled based on caste.

"Some Muslims also vote for the BJP here because of Varun Babu. They either benefit from him being an MP or have some connections to his family," Saijna says.

The Sikh votes are also divided, they feel, with some of them voting for the SP and the rest for the BJP. Some farmers also feel frustrated with not being allowed to burn crops, because it does not allow them to plant their next harvest.

He feels that there will be a 'takkar' — a tough fight between the SP and the BJP this time. Not everyone agrees though.

'Neta Nahi, Gunde The'

As we enter Puranpur, we are greeted by narrow gullies crowded by electric rickshaws and two-wheelers trying to crawl through the little space left by pedestrians who are busy bargaining for the best price with the vegetable vendors and the fruit sellers.

Almost everything is available at this local market, and it is dominated by Agarwals, Muslims and nameless street hawkers almost equally.

After a tiring walk, surveying the locality to get a read on the demographics, I look for people who are not occupied with their business. Most people shied away from speaking or were too busy to respond.

Mohan Maheshwari, a local shopkeeper from Puranpur, lay down with his head resting on one hand, and the other fanning air towards himself. It was a stationery shop which had shelved almost everything a teenager needs for school.

Maheshwari feels that the previous MP, Varun Gandhi, is from a 'bada parivar' (elite family). I asked him if Gandhi was accessible, and he promptly replied saying "Sir, where will such big people have time for us?" He believes that the MP may visit Pilibhit city, but not smaller towns like Puranpur.

The area also has a sizeable population of the Muslim community, with a large Muslim settlement adjacent to the railway tracks. Maheshwari was of the opinion that the Muslim community does not trust the Samajwadi Party anymore, especially after many of its 'leaders' have died in encounters and accidents alike. I took it as a reference to the death of the mafia king Atiq Ahmed.

There was a lot of 'dabanggai' before, according to him. Now, not so much. "Neta nahi, gunde the woh", he adds.

"Muslims over here are upset that an underpass has not been built. He (Gandhi) lives in Delhi, we have not even seen him once in five years. Locals face lots of problems with infrastructure and connectivity. We cannot even reach Bareilly easily, Dilli toh door ki baat hai," he says, complaining about the issues that matter the most to the constituents.

'SP Has Failed To Protect Muslims'

As we depart from Puranpur, and head towards Pilibhit city, midway, we make a pitstop at Gajraula — a small town divided between the Hindus and Muslims who equally populate the area. Mohammad Umar alias Chandan, says that we caught hold of the right person to speak to, praising his own political wisdom.

He explains the demographics of the area and patiently describes the voting pattern. "You can consider the Kurmis and Muslims as almost being together when it comes to elections," he says. According to him, most upper-castes — Rajputs, Brahmins — are strongly with the BJP. However, the Muslims rely on the Samajwadi Party or the Congress for their political protection.

Yadavs, according to him, are divided. He says that the local village where he lives has nearly 4,000 voters, among which 2,500 are Muslims.

"We have all decided to vote for the SP this time. We were earlier with the Congress, but our votes will go to the SP because of the alliance being announced. Yogi's (Adityanath) bulldozer can reach anywhere, and the Muslims are more scared now than they have ever been. This will be a vote to defeat Modi and Yogi," he says.

According to Umar, the local Muslims are also divided to a certain extent, with the upper castes like Ashrafs and Syeds deciding to cast their votes for the Bahujan Samaj Party's candidate Anis Ahmed Khan who is a Pathan. He believes that the BSP is doing the BJP a favour by splitting Muslim votes, and the poor Muslims in the region spite them for that.

In multiple elections, Khan has secured anywhere between one lakh to 1.9 lakh votes in the general elections — a crucial amount that is enough to give another candidate a lead during polls. He also tells me about the local Bengali immigrant community — a 40,000-strong that always votes for the BJP because of the CAA-NRC issue.

"You should also meet them, it will be an interesting addition to your story," he says, shaking hands with me and getting ready to pose for a photo on my request.

I thank him for the tip and wish him well, and Umar goes back to grazing his cows with the leash held in one hand and twirling his moustache with the other.

'Kurmis Dominate, But Hindutva Has United Us'

In Baheri's Azad Nagar, which falls under Bareilly, three childhood friends — Nathulal Pradhan, Veer Bahadur Gangwar, Lakhan Singh and one more are chatting over a cup of tea.

All of them, except Singh, belong to Kurmi community — the dominant caste group in Pilibhit Lok Sabha. Kurmis are categorised under the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

The Muslim-Yadav combination has historically worked for the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, but in Pilibhit, locals concur that the BJP has worked towards winning over Yadav and Kurmi votes — causing upsets to the SP.

Pradhan, a farmer himself, is distressed like many others, with wild animals invading their farms and destroying their crops. When it is not wild animals, cattle trouble them too. They say that the government provides funds to create gaushalas (cow shelters), but corruption at local level has rendered any funds pointless.

Still, they are voting for the BJP this time, the main reason being the improvement in law and order.

"We used to run from our homes and hide on our terrace when goons used to knock on the door. We were constantly worried about our wives and daughters when they went out. The situation was unimaginable until a few years ago," Gangwar says, adding that the Kurmis are now with the BJP because of this reason.

All of them opine that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have united Hindus and caste no longer matters when it comes to electoral politics.

Irrespective of Jitin Prasada's caste background, they suggest that the most Hindu votes will go to the BJP, while some may decide to vote on caste lines.

They have no expectations from Varun Gandhi, and he has never bothered to visit them, they say. They also face issues in obtaining ration cards, they claim, because the local officers behave arrogantly with them. They say that the officers have the "old mentality" — that they do not openly criticise the BJP, but mentally belong to an era dominated by socialist politics.

"Kurmis — Mauryas, Kashyap, Rathore, Mali, Baniyas and even Yadavs are now voting for the BJP," Singh says.

Gangwar's children — a son and a daughter — are both graduates with a bachelor's degree in arts and science respectively. But both of them are unemployed and are looking for opportunities without much luck.

Gangwar runs a grocery store and makes hardly Rs 400-500 a day, and the entire family of five are dependent on him to bring home some money.

"Kurmis use Kanaujiya, Katihar, Sajan, Patel, Verma, and Yaduvanshi as surnames," he explains. The group claims that the Muslims in the local villages are benefitting disproportionately from schemes such as AWAS Yojana and Ujjwala.

In fact, they add: "The local councillor here is a Muslim, so the implementation of schemes is also biased. Most Muslims are easily able to obtain the benefits, whereas Hindus have to suffer. This is the irony," he says with a sigh. Close to 80 per cent of the voters in Pilibhit are engaged in agriculture.

In Jeorah Kalyanpur, a hamlet on the outskirts of Pilibhit, most women voters — all Kurmis — told Swarajya that they would vote for the candidate their husbands or fathers recommend.

This was confirmed in Barkhera too, and even when we visited Nawada Mahesh village, the case was the same. Most men are out in the fields, tilling their land, while women are at home. Till sunset, the villages look half-empty.

The best time to talk to locals is the evening when the men are back home and hanging out with their neighbours or with friends at a local chai shop.

Jitendra Kumar, a Nawada Mahesh local, is an Arvind Kejriwal supporter. He says that the construction of the Ram Mandir has had a big impact on the people of his village.

"BJP came to power here in 1992 because of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. Otherwise, they were nowhere to be seen. This time, with the completion of the temple and announcement of intent for Mathura, most villagers are going to vote for the BJP," he says, almost disgruntled.

About 1,500 Kurmis populate the village. He says that the central schemes are available and that each household is enjoying the benefits of at least one or two such schemes in the village.

Covering a constituency with more than a million voters and trying to identify trends can be confusing. Sometimes, it leaves reporters dejected, with no clarity on what exactly the outcome may look like. Later that evening, I asked the receptionist at my hotel what he thought about the politics in Pilibhit.

"Arre sir, yeh to simple hain. Iss baar toh Hindu-Muslim ke naam mein hi votes batega, aap dekhlo," he says, laughing.

This report is part of Swarajya's 50 Ground Stories Project - an attempt to throw light on themes and topics that are often overlooked or looked down. You can support this initiative by sponsoring as little as Rs 2,999/-. Click here for more details.