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 state of Gujarat, is part of a larger three year project to investigate these questions in future Vidhan Sabha and Panchayat level elections. The two project locations for the current study are ....
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
Ashish Mehta, Deputy Editor, Governance Now. He is stationed at Achhala, Chhota Udepur, Vadodara district, and is tracking the events and voters around polling booth no. 89 which has 738 voters.
Brajesh Kumar, Special Correspondent, Governance Now. He is stationed at Dugheri village in Mahuva block, Bhavnagar district, and is tracking the events and voters around polling booths number 68 and 69, which have 1,809 voters.
New Stories
WHAT: Till 2007 assembly polls, Achhala had one polling booth but now has two: numbers 89 (738 voters) and 90 (927 voters). Chhota Udepur (reserved for scheduled tribes) is the constituency for both Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha polls.
WHERE: Nestled in hills of Chhota Udepur sub-district of Vadodara district, village is about 12 km from Chhota Udepur and 90 km from Vadodara. All inhabitants of village tribals, Rathwa being the majority community and Nayakas the minority. Villagers depend on farming for livelihood.
WHO: Candidates in fray are sitting MLA Gulsinh Rathwa (BJP), sitting MLA of neighbouring Pavi-Jetpur Mohansinh Rathwa (Congress) who has shifted post-delimitation, Shankar Rathwa (Gujarat Parivartan Party and BJP MLA from 2002-07), Arjun Rathwa (JD-U; prominent social activist earlier with Congress), Somabhai Nayak (BSP; represents other tribal sub-group Nayaks).
Idyllic, or not quite? Whether all the spending delivers any result or not is an open question, and the replies by Achhala locals were varied.
Underground economics of votes may not be effective but remains pervasive on eve of polling
With the second and final phase of elections in Gujarat on today, let us focus on the hush-hush talk that found no mention in candidates’ speeches or pamphlets: the voting-eve distribution of cash and/or liquor.
After the neighbouring district of Narmada went to polls on December 13, people of Achhala were intrigued by and discussed reports coming from Narmada about the exchange of “gifts” the night before.
Incidentally, according to figures released by the election commission, Narmada district recorded the highest voting of 82.21 percent in the first phase.
“On the previous night, the (party) candidate got 25 truckloads of liquor cleared from the checkposts. He called up the PSI (police sub-inspector) and gave him Rs 10 lakh — none of the trucks were caught and all the bottles were distributed in the villages the same night. You need connections like that to win elections,” N told H (names withheld to protect identity), who has been helping a non-Congress, non-BJP candidate during campaigning.
“I have heard he distributed Rs 10,000 to the main party campaigner in each village,” N said.
Comparing the figure with that of 2007 elections, he said, “Last time, the (party) gave Rs 6,500 to our village and then, at the last moment, the (other party) came and gave Rs 10,000.”
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WHAT: Village has two polling booths: numbers 68 and 69, with 1,800 voters between them. It’s under Mahuva Vidhan Sabha and Bardoli Lok Sabha constituency.
WHERE: In Mahuva block of Bhavnagar district, Dugheri is about 15 km from Mahuva town and 9 km inside from Bhavnagar-Somnath highway, with the road winging up at the village. While farming is the main occupation of the village’s 4,000-odd people, lack of rains this year has seen more than 1,000 people, mostly youths, venture outside to work in diamond-cutting industry. Village primarily dominated by Koli caste (OBC category).
WHO: Main candidates in fray are Bharatbhai Thakkar (Sadbhavna Party, launched by Mahuva’s three-time MLA Kanubhai Kalsaria, earlier with BJP), Raj Mehta (Congress), Harishbhai Mehta (Gujarat Parivartan Party) and Bhavana Makwana (BJP).
D-day at Dugheri: Some relax while waiting for their turn outside polling booth number 69, at the local primary school, on the first-phase polling in Gujarat on December 13.
The first vote pressed at 8 am sharp, 794 of 953 registered voters had cast their vote by 5 pm when the story wound up at this polling station in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district
At 4 am, when they got up to get their act together for D-day, the polling party had little clue about the bright and sunny day that was to follow and that Dugheri would show up in numbers to give their thumbs-up to an idea called democracy.
It was, and they did.
Having reached the polling station, the primary school at Dugheri, the previous day (read “As Guj votes, a look at how polling booth is prepared”), the polling officials had hardly had any time to sleep — they had to get up early to convert one of the school’s classrooms into booth number 69. Unpacking the entire election material and arranging them in order for the polling took much of their time, said Suresh Bhatia, the presiding officer and in charge of the polling party.
“We could finish only at midnight,” he added, going about crossing the checklist he held.
Everything needed to be in order for the mock poll at 7 am. The room for the primary school’s class VIII, which had been converted into booth number 69, looked markedly different, as all extra furniture had been taken out and only five desks and chairs left.
Who does what, and how
The first desk was for polling officer 1 (P1), who checks identification of the voters through a copy of the voters list. Once a voter enters the booth, he will have to produce his elector’s photo identity card (EPIC) or the voter’s slip along with an identity card. P1 would check the voter slips number, match it with the voters list and, if everything is in order, would call out the voter’s name along with his serial number on the voters’ slip.
WHAT: Till 2007 assembly polls, Achhala had one polling booth but now has two: numbers 89 (738 voters) and 90 (927 voters). Chhota Udepur (reserved for scheduled tribes) is the constituency for both Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha polls.
WHERE: Nestled in hills of Chhota Udepur sub-district of Vadodara district, village is about 12 km from Chhota Udepur and 90 km from Vadodara. All inhabitants of village tribals, Rathwa being the majority community and Nayakas the minority. Villagers depend on farming for livelihood.
WHO: Candidates in fray are sitting MLA Gulsinh Rathwa (BJP), sitting MLA of neighbouring Pavi-Jetpur Mohansinh Rathwa (Congress) who has shifted post-delimitation, Shankar Rathwa (Gujarat Parivartan Party and BJP MLA from 2002-07), Arjun Rathwa (JD-U; prominent social activist earlier with Congress), Somabhai Nayak (BSP; represents other tribal sub-group Nayaks).
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi addresses the audience at Pavi-Jetpur
Modi, his oratory and his helicopter impress folks – mostly
A Modi meeting, even if it was in the neighbouring Pavi-Jetpur, was probably the biggest election event for Achhala so far. Though it was a different constituency, the rally had all BJP candidates from the region, including Giulsinh, on the dais.
On Sunday, then, as I waited at the small road to Tejgah, BJP supporters from Achhala were busy gathering other supporters. I counted ten vehicles – from rundown jeeps and small local passenger transport vehicles to budget SUVs, decorated to various degree – only a small board at the front with Modi’s photo and the campaign tagline ‘Ekmat Gujarat’ (Unanimous Gujarat) to banners depicting the chief minister and the local candidates. If there were some riding on top of the vehicles, they invariably were wearing the full gear of a Modi mask, a saffron cap and a saffron scarf with the party symbol around the neck.As our party of 16 finally assembled and we took our seats in the Toofan (a Mahindra Maxx SUV), the conversation for no reason turned to the village politics: a former sarpanch who still called the shots had decided to frame an application from the village for some welfare scheme in a certain way, many were not happy with the way it was proceeding, and finally a couple of villagers from a generation below the sarpanch had challenged him. “If we had not raised the voice, we all would have continued to live with injustice,” one said, though it was difficult to follow the details.
The talk of justice then turned the conversation to Mahatma Gandhi. “I follow Gandhi in such matters: ‘I will die the death of a crow or a dog but will speak only truth’. I say only what is right and I am not afraid to do so,” said Arvind Rathwa. Somebody said, but it was a difficult path. “Difficult it is, indeed,” he agreed. Another fellow passenger joked, “We should make Arvind our sarpanch,” and everybody smiled.
This led to a criticism of leaders, presumably at the local levels. “We call them sahib, but if they don’t do our work, how are they sahibs then? Now people are aware. Self-styled leaders have been thrown aside.”
The vehicle, now on the highway to Vadodara, was stopped by a small BJP team, with their leader in crisp starched ironed spotless white kurta-churidar – the contrast to our party of farmer-tribals could not have been more. The team noted down the name of the village we were coming from. One of us explained to no one in particular, “Expenses (meaning accounts). Expenses will have to be settled, right?”
The twin towns of Pavi-Jetpur, a taluka headquarters, are not more than 15 km from Achhala, and soon it was the rally venue, the agricultural market yard, where upwards of 5,000 people had gathered and more were streaming in. One more item from the BJP campaign kit was on display here: saffron T-shirts, with a picture of Swami Vivekanand on the front and Narendra Modi at the back: no party name or symbol necessary.
The BJP in-charge of the region, Bharat Pandya, and the Lok Sabha member from Chhota Udepur (who represents these parts too), Ramsinh Rathwa, made their short speeches, canvassed for the three assembly election candidates also present there and introduced a slew of the current generation members from the former princely families of Chhota Udepur and neighbouring rajwadas who bowed down to the crowd.
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