At “over 85 years”, the oldest resident of Kelabadi, Puna Bai, does not remember her exact age. A Halba tribal, she does not also remember the year she moved into Kelabadi.

But what she distinctly remembers is that her eldest daughter (she died some years ago, and would have been 65 now) was born in her bamboo hutment here at a time when there were only five other families in her neighbourhood in what was then a dense forest tucked under Dalli mines in Chhattisgarh’s Durg district.

Puna Bai says her late husband, Sangram Singh, shelled out Rs 10 to a local toughie, Ganga Ram, (his family moved out of Kelabadi some years ago) to raise a shanty on Bhilai steel plant (BSP) land. Singh, she recalls, always carried a crowbar and axe to clear their way towards the mines, where the husband-wife duo toiled during the day, and also towards purana bazaar (old market) of Dalli, where they bought their ration and vegetables.

The couple was paid Rs 7 for filling up a truck with iron ore – more than 70 times less than what is being paid to labourers now. Puna Bai says she fetched drinking water from Jharandalli, a waterfall about half a kilometre climb from Kelabadi.

Originally from Gunderdehi block of Balod district, Puna Bai does not recall when she exercised her franchise first time. But she remembers having voted for “cow-calf” – the poll symbol of “Indira Congress” in the past. “The Congress party’s agents used to visit the locality to distribute voting slips then,” she says. “The candidates, dressed in starched white khadi, walked on kuchcha streets to seek their votes.” That in itself, she says, was a sight.

“They would promise drinking water, pucca houses and employment.”

A shanty town changes

Over the decades, Kelabadi expanded from half-a-dozen families to a bustling settlement. The bamboo shanties gave way to ‘khaprail tile’ roofs, and the place witnessed a population explosion after 1980, when the government started mining in new mines around Dalli Rajhara – “so much so that people would at times stand in ration queues for several days! We got our quota in three or four days and left the queue only after placing a stone in our place,” recalls Puna Bai, now extremely hard of hearing.

Besides tribals from other districts of the undivided Madhya Pradesh (primarily Tirodi-Balaghat district), the settlement attracted labourers even from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states. Till 2005, BSP had over 16,000 people working in the mines of Dalli, Rajhara and Konde Road.

But the plant stopped fresh recruitments some six years ago after deploying heavy machines for mining and getting in private contractors. This triggered a reverse migration from Kelabadi. Today the BSP has about 3,000 regular employees. So few are people on the rolls that Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh – spearheaded by the powerful trade union leader, late Shankar Guha Niyogi, and which sent Janak Lal Thakur to the Madhya Pradesh assembly for two terms, 1985-90 and 1993-98 – today has only 1,500 members.

The streets of the settlement were cemented about 15 years ago when Dalli Rajhara municipality was ruled by Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), the political arm of Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh. Puna Bai’s son, Dina Nath, who died recently, was a CMM councillor in the municipality.

While a large part of the settlement has got piped water supply through common taps in the last five years, the houses are still kuchha and unemployment is rampant.

Puna Bai says she lost her house when 165 families were displaced in January this year to make way for a railway track. Today Puna Bai, her daughter-in-law and three grandchildren live in a rented accommodation. Her eldest grandson (15) dropped out of class VIII to work as an assistant in a shop in Dalli Rajhara.

A lot has changed in the last more than six decades since she moved into Dalli Rajhara, Puna Bai says. BPL families like hers in Chhattisgarh are entitled to 25 kg rice and 10 kg wheat, 2 kg gram, two packets of salt and over 1 kg sugar for Rs 100 every month; ordinary wooden trucks have been replaced by tippers to carry iron ore; there is a primary and a middle school around; and she gets old-age pension every month.

But what surprises her is the way things remain the same even as they change. “The candidates contesting on symbols of different political groups still repeat old promises. They still promise pucca houses, drinking water and employment,” she says.

“Kaam dehi (will give you work),” is what she recalls when asked to recollect a common assurance given to her family in the run-up to the assembly elections that got over in Chhattisgarh on November 19. She is also amazed by the cacophony surrounding the elections: “Though candidates used mikes earlier, too, there were no vehicles blaring parodies and slogans. The security around star politicians was also minimal.”

A good change, she says is that over the years the voters have become more demanding and started questioning the candidates.

On November 19, Puna Bai voted again, and she has no hesitation sharing where she pressed the button on the EVM. With Janak Lal Thakur’s CMM symbol changing from bow and arrow to kite, her son-in-law Domen was at hand to guide her. “Hum lal-hara jhanda manat hain (We follow the red-green flag),” she declares.