About the Website
This website has been created for the above project and will carry short field reports from researchers who are currently conducting ethnographic research into the meaning that elections hold for the electorate. Shifting the emphasis away from 'who will win', this study of elections will investigate the reasons for why people vote at all, what their motivations are, how the election campaign is experienced by ordinary voters and what their experience of casting their vote on election day is like. We hope to update these posts frequently during the period of the elections.
Project Specifics
This project is entitled 'Panchayat and Vidhan Sabha elections 2012-2015' with Dr Mukulika Banerjee of the London School of Economics and Political Science as its Principal Investigator and is a part of a larger study launched by the European Research Network Programme: "Explaining Electoral Change in Rural and Urban India". It is funded by the Indian-European Research Networking Programme ANR-DFG-ESRC-ICSSR-NOW Joint Funding Scheme, Reference Number: 465-11-031.
Project Site
This study currently being conducted during the State level Vidhan Sabha elections in the states of Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, is part of a larger three-year project to investigate these questions. The four project sites identified for this year's project are: 1. Kelabari, Dalli Rajhara, Chattisgarh, 2. Sirohi, Abu Road, Rajasthan, 3. Raghubir Nagar, Rajouri Garden, Delhi and 4. Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Project Execution
Governance Now, a print and web publication on public policy, is executing this project study under the supervision of Dr Banerjee. Two senior journalists of Governance Now will be observing the elections for one month by living in the vicinity of the project sites. They have been on the ground since November 14.
Researchers
A senior journalist with more than two decades of experience working in some of the biggest media houses, he is stationed at Kelabari, Dalli Rajhara, Chattisgarh.
Brajesh Kumar: A special correspondent with Governance Now, Brajesh is winner of this year's Press Council of India's National Award for Rural Reporting for his reporting from Revdakalan, Abu Road, Rajasthan. He will revisit the place for this project.
Jasleen Kaur: A principal correspondent with Governance Now, Jasleen has covered Delhi extensively in her career. She will track Raghubir Nagar, part of the Rajouri Garden constituency of Delhi.
Srishti Pandey: A correspondent with Governance Now, Srishti will cover Samardha, close to Madhya Pradesh's capital Bhopal.
Earlier Project Sites
As part of this project last year, Governance Now journalists covered two constituencies in Gujarat. Click here to read their reports.
ABOUT REVDAKALAN
WHAT: Surrounded by hills on all sides, Redvakalan is one of 5 villages under Kiyaria panchayat of Abu Road block in Rajasthan. It falls under Reodar, a reserved constituency for scheduled castes. A tribal village with 90 percent of 2,000 population belonging to Garasia tribe, it has 1,095 voters (552 male, 544 female).
WHERE: Redvakalan lies about 6 km from the nearest town, Abu Road, and 2 km off the Abu Road-Reodar state highway. A cemented track leads up to the village. The village is a distributed into a number of falis (or hamlets) with 10 to 15 families in each fali. Reodar is one of the three assembly constituencies in Rajasthan’s Sirohi district. A reserved constituency for scheduled caste since 1980, it is dominated by Meghwal and Koli community that make up more than 50% of the population. Upper castes, which include Rajputs and Brahmans, constitute 25% of the population and the remaining 25% is made up by other backward castes.
WHO:Before Reodar became a reserved seat, it was dominated by Rajput leaders from the Congress. In 1980, the year it became a reserved seat, it was won by an SC leader, Chhoga Ram Bakoliya, from the Congress. The BJP first breached Congress dominance in 1993, when Tikam Chand Kant won the seat. In last two assembly elections, the seat has gone to BJP’s Jagasi Ram Koli, who is also the party’s candidate this time.
Jagasi Ram’s main opponent is Congress’s Lakma Ram Koli. The third contender for the seat is RJP’s Mithu Singh Nayak, who has served as Reodar sub divisional magistrate (SDM) for five years. The constituency has about 1.76 lakh votes.
Farming is the main occupation of Revdakalan village with the majority owning small patches of land. A number of young men also double as daily wage labourer in Abu Road town. There is no electricity in the village and therefore no house has a television set. There is one primary school with 30 students enrolled. This schools will turn into booth number 160 on polling day: December 1.