May 13 , 2019 ;
As Delhi voted Saturday, there were thousands spending the day under flyovers, along open sewers and at dusty construction sites, who didn’t bear any mark on their finger. Dozens of labourers, migrants in the city, told The Indian Express that travelling home was a luxury, and the prospect of losing wages, or not getting their job back when they returned, stopped them from exercising their mandate.
Amit Bhadana from Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district and Braj Kishore from Mathura, both Jatavs in their early 20s, sat at the construction site of a luxury apartment in North West Delhi’s Rohini. “Vote ke chakkar mai gaon jaake kya fayda?” said Amit (20), whose family owns around 5 bighas land back home. The men, who have voter ID cards, cut marble, earning Rs 350 and Rs 450 respectively.
Kishore earns a little more as he has “more experience”. A staunch supporter of the Mayawati-led BSP, the 21-year-old may not have voted, but he keeps track of politics in UP, and believes the SP-BSP alliance will dent BJP.
Kishore’s family is landless and does not have anyone with a steady job. Polling has already taken place in Bharatpur and Mathura.
At a West Delhi construction site, Sukanto Malla (40) and Jogin Oraon (32) had a similar tale. Mallas, meaning boatmen, are traditionally engaged in fishing while Oraons are a Scheduled Tribe found in Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bengal and Assam. Both hail from West Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district and said they came to Delhi two months ago in search of work. Raiganj, their Lok Sabha constituency, went to polls on April 18.
At the Noida-Delhi border, off the DND flyway, a cluster of shacks made of loose bricks house around four families, including a group of children, hailing from UP’s Mahoba and Bihar’s Begusarai. They are building a concrete drain a few metres from the site.
Sanjay Mahto, aged “40-42”, said he usually goes back to Begusarai during polls, but could not “afford” it this time. A Kurmi, Sanjay has supported RJD’s Lalu Prasad Yadav in the past, but is now loyal to Bihar CM and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar. Vinod Yadav, also from Begusarai, said they spend around six to seven months in Delhi-NCR every year, moving from one construction site to another. “Kamayenge toh khayenge. We cannot go back. We don’t have land. We manage to earn around Rs 6,000-Rs 8,000 during these months,” he said.
Sanjay said the mistris earn around Rs 400 daily while labourers get Rs 300.
Like others, zameen or land tops the list of demands of Kavita, one of the labourers who has come with her four children. “Bijli paani hai. Ek saal pehle bijli mili. Cylinder bhi mila. Jab paisa hota hai cylinder mein pakate hai, nahi toh lakdi se. Par zameen nahi hai,” she said.
Most labourers have not heard of any social safety net such as insurance or pension schemes by the government. Asked about his thoughts on the five years of the Narendra Modi government, Sanjay said there has been development in his village with new roads and latrines coming up, and families coming under the LPG net.
“However, I got only Rs 6,000 for the latrine, half the sanctioned amount. Baaki paisa pata nahi kaha chala gaya,” said Sanjay. He said he wants his children to get a good education.
Unlike Sanjay, Kali Charan, a Dalit, has not managed to get a toilet built under the Swachh Bharat scheme. His wife and two daughters work alongside him at the site. “When we don’t get to eat, don’t have work, toilet sounds like a luxury,” he said.
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