Lok Sabha polls: On Dehradun Express, it's 'king' Modi versus lack of jobs

In the second of a four-part series, Somesh Jha travels from Dehradun to Mumbai, via Rajasthan, MP, Gujarat to gauge pre-poll emotions

The Dehradun railway station boasts of amenities that it didn't have five years ago — clean platforms, renovated toilets and an online facility for reserving waiting rooms.

But the modernisation has come at a cost to some. Take Raj Kapoor, who works as a coolie (or porter). “This railway station has a lift, escalators and many such modern facilities, making our job redundant. As a result, we often go back home without earning a single rupee,” says Kapoor, sitting outside the station with a bunch of his porter friends. 

Raj Kapoor, a porter at Dehradun railway station, says coolies were expecting better job opportunities from the government but their expectations weren't met

The porters are all praise for Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was minister for railways with the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and had absorbed nearly 40,000 porters into vacancies for the job of gang men (those who inspect rail tracks).

Once you board Dehradun Express, though, you get a sense of how sharply divided the pre-poll sentiment is. The train, which covers a distance of over 1,600 km as it makes its 42-hour journey to Mumbai through the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, is hugely overbooked, and although there are Swachh Bharat logos in every coach, not one dust bin is in evidence. 

A group of women pilgrims in the unreserved general class compartment voice their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  “He is the king of this country. He talks straight and has brought a change in society,” says 44-year old Bimla Devi, trying to shut up a co-passenger who protests feebly that she has not received LPG cylinders under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. 

Bimla Devi, 44, from Uttarakhand tries to convince a co-passenger about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's achievements

But Bimla Devi’s vote of confidence on Modi is not shared by a 29-year-old man travelling to Haridwar to pursue a degree in yoga science from the University of Patanjali. Did the Balakot strike actually kill any militants, he wonders aloud. “In Uttarakhand, the Congress and the BJP will have an equal fight. The youth are unhappy with the job scenario and they feel Modi hasn’t delivered after promising the moon,” he says. 

In the adjacent coach, some women call Congress “a party of Muslims" which supports politicians like National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah who wants a "separate PM for Jammu and Kashmir”. But the youngest of them is clearly a fan of Congress president Rahul Gandhi. He should "throw out the elders in the party," she says, and stick to young leaders like Priyanka Gandhi.

As the train trundles into Saharanpur (UP), 33-year old Brijesh Kumar remarks that he would vote for the BJP  "even if his job is taken away”. Kapil, a 30-year-old locomotive pilot with the Indian Railways from Muzaffarnagar, is reluctant to voice his views. But then he opens up and says that both the BJP and the Samajwadi Party are dividing people on religious lines in Uttar Pradesh.

Listening to the criticism, Govind Patel, a 55-year-old farmer and a tribal who is travelling to Vapi in Gujarat, adds his bit: “Modi bhai has taken the bread out of our mouths. There is so much business in Vapi, yet there are not enough jobs and only about 30-40 houses have toilets.” 

By the time the train nears Delhi, a group of passengers are engaged in a heated debate, ranging from cows to the Pulwama attack, from Modi's estranged wife to the politics of religion. “The Hindu-Muslim politics began with Nehru,” says a BJP supporter from Maharashtra. "The Constitution is being burnt down," counters Hemavati Nandan Bahuna, a 35-year-old teacher from Azamgarh.

A swarm of local passengers board the train at Ramganj Mandi in Rajasthan. One of them, a young farmer called Kanhaiya Lal, wants Modi back as PM. He is happy with the PM-KISAN scheme, which will give Rs 6000 per year to poor farmers, and is waiting for the subsidy to be credited into his account. 

But 28-year-old Harikesh is disgruntled with the lack of government job vacancies in Rajasthan. Despite a vocational training from an industrial training institute and a Bachelor of Education degree, he earns just Rs 5,000 a month. “When the Congress was in power, they opened up thousands of government job vacancies. This didn't happen during the BJP’s tenure,” he says.

“People want everything for free nowadays. What’s so bad about Modi,” argues  Shivam Dhakkad, 23, who is from Guna in Madhya Pradesh and is on his way to a job interview in Modak (Rajasthan). “Anyway, five years is too short a time to  bring about substantial change," he insists, echoing an oft-repeated line from the BJP’s campaign playbook. 

Opinion is split down the middle among a group of daily wage earners as well. Getting off at Dara station, one Keshav asserts that poor people are still living in misery while another man, Surinder, expresses his anger that Rahul Gandhi suggested that Modi was a chor (thief). "How can you talk about the PM like that,” he asks indignantly.

Sachin Saini, a resident of Madhya Pradesh, says the Congress has been promising old wine in a new bottle to voters as he flaunts 'Main bhi Chowkidar' henna imprinted on his hand

Deepak Chaturvedi wears his love for Modi on his sleeve. He also sports the legend “Main Bhi Chowkidar” written in henna on his hand. A resident of Jhalawar district in Rajasthan, he says, "Madhya Pradesh lost a sevak (public servant) in Shivraj Singh Chouhan due to greed (for the Congress’s promise to waive farm loans).”

Garvar Singh Datla, an ex-BJP worker and now a government school teacher in Ratlam district in Madhya Pradesh, is equally ardent in his support for the ruling party. “It will be a fight between the nationalists and the Congress. The benefits of the NYAY scheme will go to Muslims which is the actual motive of the Congress.”

But A. Patel, a farmer from Junagadh district in Gujarat, feels that the elections may not be a cakewalk for the BJP this time. “Farmers are unhappy. Modi has made a fool out of us. And now with elections near, he has remembered our plight,” he says, adding, “But it's also true that the Congress does not have a credible face in Gujarat.”

A monk from Uttar Pradesh says he will vote for anyone - be it a Hindu or a Muslim - who does good to the society

A businessman from Vadodara agrees. “Modi will face a challenge in Gujarat this time,” he says, “He hasn't done enough for the poor.”

Ask a chai-pakoda seller at Vadodara station, however, and he tells you that the Pulwama attack may have changed the narrative in favour of Modi in the urban pockets of Gujarat. “There is no leader as strong and bold as Modi. None from the so-called mahagathbandhan are worthy of being called a leader,” opines Lal Singh, a small-scale businessman from Surat, who feels that even if demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) did not pan out well, Modi took the decisions in national interest  — “unlike other party leaders who work only for their family.”