Chasing the wind in Uttar Pradesh: Who are bus drivers and conductors betting on?

One of Uttar Pradesh’s busiest bus terminals is at Noida’s Sector 35, where every few minutes a state transport bus either arrives, leaves or stops to fill up on CNG.

Surendra Singh (45), driver of an Uttar Pradesh state transport bus plying between Noida and Aligarh and the conductor Shashibala (30), who refers to herself with the prefix “Kumari”, declared their support for Akhilesh Yadav and the BJP respectively.

Driver Jitendra Singh (30) and conductor Bittu Yadav cover the Delhi-Noida-Mainpuri route and both of them claimed that all four assembly seats around Mainpuri would go to Akhilesh Yadav. The conductor of another bus, Brijesh Kumar (30) also from Mainpuri, however, felt it was a close fight but incumbent chief minister Adityanath was more powerful and would therefore emerge victorious.

Most of the drivers and conductors referred to ‘Yogi’ and ‘Akhilesh’, rather than their parties. This seemed to suggest that the election in UP has turned into a popularity contest between the two. Unlike in the 2017 and 2019 elections, Modi is rarely mentioned.

Ayodhya is the home town of Pawan Kumar (32), though his bus route is DelhiNoida-Kanpur. He reverently refers to Adityanath as “Babaji” and was “hundred percent” sure he would win the election with ease. Conductor Jaiprakash Sharma (24) is also sure that the “hawa” (wind) favoured Adityanath. Jaiprakash’s bus route is Noida-Hathras while his hometown is Mathura.

A conductor whose home is in Auraiya however is emphatic that the “hawa” was blowing fully for the ‘cycle’ (the SP’s election symbol). He refuses to provide his name. Sanjeev Kumar (27) walks towards me and declares he is for Akhilesh. He’s from Meerut and is employed to fill CNG for the buses. Conductor Arvind Gupta (24), also from Meerut, says Akhilesh would win the election.

Kanwarpal Singh (35) drives his bus locally between Noida and Greater Noida. His home is in Baghpat, Western Uttar Pradesh, where he says there is “kantay ki takkar” (very close fight) between Adityanath and Jayant Chaudhury, the leader of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). This colloquial, colourful “takkar” phrase cropped up in many of my conversations.

Driver Umesh Kumar Singh (46) on Noida-Aligarh-Aga route also thinks that there is a “kantay ki takkar” between Adityanath and Akhilesh, but greatly hopes that the former would win as he had ended the “goonda raj” (rule of thugs), an unstated but obvious reference to governance of the state from 2012-2017, when Akhilesh was the chief minister.

From Noida, I drove five hours to the state transport bus stand next to the imposing Jain Mandir at the teeming centre of Firozabad. Satyaveer (55) drives his bus between Firozabad and Mathura. His home is in Hathras but he seemed indifferent to the rape, murder and hasty cremation of a young Dalit girl there. He suggests I am wasting his time. After some coaxing, he relents and says that he would be voting for Babaji.

Conductor Deepak Bharadwaj (35), whose bus route is Firozabad-Mathura, claims that Firozabad supports the BJP “hundred percent”. Driver Radharam (32) who drives between Firozabad and Mathura, is for Babaji, as he ended “goondagardi” (the thug menace) in Uttar Pradesh.

The next day, I moved to the small town of Bah, 70 km from Agra. Just outside Bah, I met a small group of truck drivers at a tyre repair shop. Ashok Kumar (70) and Sunil Bhadoria (40) take turns driving their truck. They live in Bah and transport goods between Agra and Kanpur. Both have already voted for the BJP candidate and say that the hawa in Bah is blowing strongly in the direction of the BJP.

Ashok is bitterly against the SP. Seven years back, he was severely injured and his truck was looted by four criminals, allegedly Yadavs. He displays the scar on his neck inflicted by the assailants. There is no violence and looting now, according to him.

Standing quietly behind Ashok and Sunil was Chottu Ram (45), who repairs tyres at the shop. He, too, had voted but refused to divulge his electoral choice. Biyander (60) crossed the road from his chai shop and joined us for a friendly chat. He showed us the voting mark on his finger and declared that he has cast his vote for the cycle. Biyander, too, said the Uttar Pradesh election result will turn out to be a “kantay ki takkar”.

Parked up the road was a gigantic, shiny, 14-wheeled Bharat Benz lorry. The young driver was taking a nap in the air-conditioned cab of his vehicle. I knocked gently and he readily climbed down for a chat. Gauri Shanker Yadav (22) drives long distances from Gandhidham in Gujarat to Kolkata in West Bengal, traversing Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. He was visiting his family in Madhushala village, three kilometres away. He claimed that his entire village had voted “total for cycle” and that all of Uttar Pradesh, except Gorakhpur, did the same.

After this chatty exchange, I took a break and drove for about 20 km, through dramatic ravines to the pristine Chambal river for a boat ride. The boatman, Mahesh Singh (32), from a nearby village, turned out to be a goldmine of local information.

He looked back favourably to the SP’s administration of 2012-2017 when Akhilesh provided cycles to many people in his village and when electricity rates were one-tenth of what they are now. Earlier, local disputes were settled locally within villages. Now the police get involved in disputes and demand big bribes to resolve them. His entire village had just voted for Akhilesh.

On the way back to Delhi, I stopped outside Bah to buy freshly-harvested produce from the farmer of a small potato field. He expressed his “nafrat” (hatred) of the Adityanath government and derisively referred to the chief minister as that “ganja (bald man) without any family”.

Adityanath’s regime has done nothing for small farmers like him. To receive any government benefits, one has to travel long distances to complete paper work at government offices. This is a big waste of time, he said. Farmers choose to get on without any official benefits. The farmer reiterated Mahesh’s point that the police now get involved in every dispute and take more bribes. Akhilesh’s government was better, he said, refusing to give me his name.

It is quite apparent that people either revere Yogi Adityanath as a holy saint (Babaji) or revile him. The BJP’s leaders, despite their best efforts, have largely failed.

( A longer version of this piece appeared earlier in The Wire.)