A forgotten leader in his own village

Agra: Not long ago he was the darling of the nation; his smiling face swung the voters across the Hindi heartland ensuring the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power for the first time within 16 years of its formation in 1996. However, in less than eight years since the BJP was voted out of power, the party's founder and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has become a forgotten leader.

Confined to his bed due to age-related health problems, Vajpayee has become a memory at Bateshwar, his birth place, some 70km from the tourist town of Agra in Uttar Pradesh.

Bateshwar, situated on the banks of the River Yamuna, is part of Bah assembly constituency under Agra district, ready to go to polls in the sixth of the seven-phased Uttar Pradesh state legislative assembly election on Tuesday. The BJP would be fortunate not to forfeit the security deposit, as it is set to taste defeat in Vajpayee's home constituency with a huge margin.

The dusty Bah constituency, comprising mostly rural belts near the Chambal ravine on the Uttar Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh border, once famous for its legendary dacoits (bandits), has forgotten the son of the soil Vajpayee prematurely.

"For us, he [Vajpayee] is dead. Do you see his posters anywhere in this constituency? If the BJP has forgotten him, it's no sin if we have forgotten him, too," said Shiv Ram Sharma, an old acquaintance of Vajpayee from his formative days in Bateshwar.

Sharma is now openly supporting the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

"I have no qualms supporting the Samajwadi Party," said Charan Singh Yadav, the village head. "If Vajpayee's relatives have joined the [state's ruling] Bahujan Samaj Party, what's wrong if I left the BJP and am now supporting the party of my fellow caste leader Mulayam Singh Yadav," asked the Bateshwar village head, while preparing to participate in the Bah rally of the Samajwadi Party state president Akhilesh Yadav, son of the Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Although Vajpayee himself never contested from the Bah assembly constituency or the Agra Lok Sabha constituency during his long and chequered political career, he ensured his home area was connected with the rail network as construction of the Agra-Bah railway line, sanctioned during his tenure as the prime minister, is almost complete. This is expected to boost the region economically.

‘Oppressed for long'

The reason Bateshwar residents give for switching their loyalties from BJP is that they want to vote for a party that is likely to form the next government in the state.

"Earlier we would get heard in the corridors of powers, both in New Delhi and the state capital Lucknow, since we belonged to Vajpayee's home village, but with the BJP not in power both at the centre and in the state, the residents of Bateshwar are insulted purposely ever since Mayawati [the Bahujan Samaj Party chief] came to power in the state," reasoned Yadav.

Ramesh Purohit, who belongs to Vajpayee's Brahmin caste and is working for the BSP candidate for the Bah constituency, admits that even if Vajpayee had endorsed anyone as his candidate, the entire constituency would have ensured victory of that candidate.

"It's basically a fight between the Thakurs and Brahmins in Bah. Thakurs have oppressed us for long so it is but natural that we are supporting the sitting BSP lawmaker Madhusudan Sharma, since he is a Brahmin," said Purohit, a local businessman.

The fellow villagers of Vajpayee have a grudge against him, too. They say the leader who many feel prevented former prime minister Indira Gandhi from replacing parliamentary democracy in India with presidential democracy in the 1970s, never bothered acting for his home village.

"We went to Vajpayee in New Delhi while he was the prime minister with a problem. We told him that we belong to his village and he said ‘the entire country is my village'. So I don't think we are obliged to support the BJP only because he was founder of the party," said Satish Sharma, who runs a mobile phone repair shop and is supporting the Brahmin candidate of the BSP.

Interestingly, the Bah constituency lacks the political activity one would expect in an area slated to go to polls in the next few days. It is a given that people would either vote for a Thakur or a Brahmin candidate, put up respectively by the Samajwadi Party and the BSP.

One has to drive some 130km from Vajpayee's home village to see his posters at Mathura where BJP is using them to woo the many Brahmin voters.