For two villages, it’s time to repay debt

The two villages, now playing out the Battle for Punjab, tell the tale of two chief ministers, poles apart in their styles, personal and political.

If Badal village is a compact, feudal affair—it is home to half-a-dozen landlords with hundreds of acres and their workers who decide the constituents of its single panchayat—Mehraj is a vast sprawl with nine panchayats held together by the Sidhu surname, a link that binds them to Amarinder who traces his roots to this village.

If Badal has always taken development for granted—the pampered village received 24-hour water and electricity supply under SAD (B) rule— Mehraj is just waking up to the joys of political patronage. It was only two years ago that it got underground sewerage, a spanking new hospital and a stadium, amenities that reached Badal, which even boasts an old age home and a residential school, long ago. Both the villages treasure their ties with the two leaders, but the nature of their interaction with them is different. Nachchattar Singh, a brick-layer from Badal village, tells you how the SAD (B) chief is just a phone call away. Gurdev Singh, who has seen Badal’s rise from a sarpanch to a CM, flashes a gap-toothed grin as tells you how he hasn’t changed at all. “He still visits the village often and meets us.”

For Mehraj, Capt Amarinder is a distant but benevolent figure who’s never talked politics on his sporadic visits to Gurdwara Sidh Tilak in the village _ the first time he came was when he was appointed PPCC chief in 1998, then in 2003 when dissidence was at its peak and twice afterwards. “I have to hand it to him that he only dwells on Sidhu bhaichara when he is here and doesn’t talk on party lines,” admits Gurchet Sidhu, in charge of the SAD (B) election office at Mehraj.

With polls on a roll, support for Amarinder is at an all-time high in Mehraj though Congress candidate Gurpreet Kangar enjoys no such fan-following. At Badal village, where SAD (B) chief is pitted against his cousin and Congress candidate Mahesh Inder, there is a vertical split in loyalties. Villagers working for Mahesh Inder root for him, the rest swear by Badal. So Manjeet Kaur, a worker on Mahesh Inder’s farm, has no qualms about posing with a Congress flag atop her shanty a few metres away from Badal’s house.

But just as you are about to surmise that the poor will vote for Mahesh Inder, you get an earful from an angry Sukho, a daily-wager who tells you that anyone who votes against Badal is a traitor. “If he returns to power again, our future will be assured for another 50 years,” she declares as a crowd grunts in agreement.

Outside the gleaming civil hospital at the border of Mehraj, Sumeet Mittal, a chemist, gives his take on the battle for Punjab in the two villages. “It’s 50:50 ji.”