Quick money at poll rallies lures migrants back home
HYDERABAD: As Telangana prepares to vote in the December 7 assembly election, it’s homecoming time for thousands of migrant workers from villages and tribal hamlets in drought-hit Mahbubnagar district, who had moved tootherpartsofthecountry in search of work.
It’s not because fresh and enduring job opportunities have opened up at home. They are returning tempted by the quick money they can earn by attending election rallies and in return for casting their votes.
“Even if we toil all through the day doing hard labour, we get a maximum of Rs 500 as daily wages. But during this election season, we can get the same amount to attend a single election rally, besides a packet of biryani. Of course, booze is an additional bonus,” says R Pandu Naik, 52, who has just returned from Mumbai to his native hamlet, Sararam Thanda in Bommarasipet block.
And on the day of polling, each of these migrant labourers stands to earn not less than Rs 1,000 per vote from each candidate. “The cost of each vote might even go up to Rs 2,000 because of a close contest between the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Congress. Who can forego such a big amount? Hence, we have come back to our villages to cast our votes,” said Narsa Naik, 54, from the village of Gouraram.
There’s no precise official estimate of the number of migrant workers from Mahbubnagar who have moved elsewhere in search of work because these are unorganised labourers. Anecdotal evidence suggests the return of many migrant workers to the district from Mumbai by trains and buses in the run-up to the vote.
Both Pandu Naik and Narsa Naik keep their voting preferences a secret. “Actually, it doesn’t make any difference for us. Our lives will remain the same, whether it is TRS or Congress, that wins here,” Narsa Naik said.
The hamlets fall under the Kodangal assembly constituency, where Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee working president A Revanth Reddy is fighting a pitched battle against P Narender Reddy of TRS, brother of Telangana transport minister K Mahender Reddy.
“Palamur labour,” as these daily-wage workers from Mahbubnagar (whose original name is Palamur) are collectively known, migrate in tens of thousands to Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra and Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajasthan every year in search of work.
Known for their expertise in earth-work, they find jobs in irrigation projects and canal works in those states. The Telangana Road Transport Corporation runs buses from these interior villages of Mahbubnagar to Mumbai and Pune almost every day. The migrant workers return to their villages during festive seasons and of course, during the election season.
Like in every elections, political parties held out promises to provide enough work to these labourers to prevent their migration. In fact, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said recently in Mahbubnagar that there had been reverse migration of labourers in the last four years. “The labourers are getting enough work due to several labour-intensive works taken up by the government,” he claimed. Here’s some real-time information. In the not-too-distant past, Rajasthan was for the Congress a low-hanging fruit. It seems now a coconut up in the sky, like a pie. That’s no poetic alliteration. It’s hard politics where love vanishes and returns faster than in real life.
The story specifically is of Marwar, which betroths 33 suitors to the 200-strong state assembly. The region has flirted with the Congress in the past. But it wasn’t ever the way it embraced the BJP in 2013. During the Narendra Modi wave, the saffron party won the hearts of the electorate in 30 constituencies. The Congress was left with just three, including Ashok Gehlot’s Sardarpura, which he’s re-contesting in Jodhpur.
There’s a lot of history to the two-time Congress CM’S association with the city that’s the seat of the erstwhile Marwar royalty. The 1952 polls in the region were swept by the Ram Rajya Parishad of the former king, Hanwant Singh Rathore, who did not live to see the Congress’s