Hajipur, Begusarai, Darbhanga, Madhepura, Supaul: The “lesson” taught by the Narendra Modi government to Pakistan following the Pulwama attack is emerging as the top vote gatherer for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar. People cutting across castes, religions and age are convinced that if it was not for the Modi government, Pakistan would have got away with the Pulwama attack and the Balakot air strike would not have happened. The Sunday Guardian travelled across five parliamentary constituencies between 18-21 April and interacted with non-party voters, primarily who belong to lower economic sections to know what were the issues that they would be keeping in mind while voting.
At the Sakalrai square in Mahua Assembly seat, which is a part of the Hajipur parliamentary seat, voters—a majority from the Yadav community—who had congregated to have their morning meal, said that they were very happy with what Modi had done in Balakot.
Abhishek Chowrasia, 21, who has a paan shop at the square, said: “We have a close group of 15 friends. Half of them belong to the Yadav community. We all will vote for Modi for two reasons—Pakistan and the development work related to road and electricity that has taken place in the last five years. The Yadav community, too, this time is voting for the BJP just because of Modi. The age-long tradition of Yadavs voting for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is going to be broken this time.” The same feelings were echoed by his two friends, all of them of similar age, from the Yadav community. Munna Yadav, whose bike’s number plate boldly displayed his caste “Yadav” in bold, said: “We are very proud with the way Pakistan has been taught a lesson. We will be needing jobs in a few years now and looking at the way development at the local level has taken place in terms of road and electricity, we believe that Modi will be able to generate employment opportunities.”
Incidentally, the local MLA from Mahua is Tej Pratap, the son of RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav. According to Vinod Singh, a small time civil contractor in Begusarai, the “bashing” that Pakistan got in the hands of Modi would not have been possible if there was any other party or a Congress government at the Centre. In the neighbouring Darbhanga rural constituency, locals who had gathered at a tea stall near a temporary helipad built for state BJP president Nityanand Rai, complained of the bribe that local government employees were taking from them to build toilets in villages. Vishal Pasi, a resident of Balha in rural Darbhanga, said: “They charge any amount from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for sanctioning the toilets. Local officials once came to our village and said that they are going to declare it an Open Defecation Free village. We asked them how they can do that despite the required toilets not being built. We told them we will bury them alive if we found they have declared our village as ODF. However, we will vote for Modi because he avenged the death of our jawans in Kashmir.” In Madhepura and Supaul, voters said Balakot was perhaps the key factor likely to influence their decision on polling day.