Dacoit gangs in the Bundelkhand region have been roped in by contestants of all parties to issue a farman (diktat) in their favour. This is a common practice in Bundelkhand. ``Politicisation of dacoits signifies evolution of a socio-political culture in Bundelkhand in which organised criminal violence has acquired legitimacy as an instrument of political coercion. Nearly three-fourth of Banda district is controlled by such gangs and these elections are no different,'' observes social scientist Dr K.N.Sharma.The writ of the dacoits runs in Hamirpur, Jhansi, Jalaun and Lalitpur districts of the Bundelkhand region and the Chambal valley belt of Agra, Etawah and Kanpur Dehat districts while Naxalites rule the roost in constituencies bordering neighbouring Bihar, including Robertsganj, Mirzapur, Ballia and parts of Varanasi.In fact, a group of Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) Naxalites slit the throat of an upper caste youth in the Gobardhana area of Sukrat forest range in the Robertsganj-Mirzapur belt andpainted the walls with the threat that anyone supporting the BJP should be ready to face the consequences.This is the real face of elections in UP which has the maximum number of Lok Sabha (85) and Assembly (425) seats and no party can escape the blame for seeking the blessings of dacoit chiefs in their areas of influence and also fielding criminal candidates which has only reinforced the trend.There are more than 50 candidates of recognised political parties who have a criminal background, and at least two dozen of them have cases of murder registered against them.If Phoolan Devi and Hari Prasad Ghamri, both dacoits in the past, are Samajwadi Party candidates in Mirzapur and Robertsganj constituencies, respectively, the BJP has fielded Ganga Charan Rajput, a protege of Kalyan Singh, in Hamirpur where the BSP has a befitting response in Ashok Chandel. Rajput has more than a dozen cases against him while Chandel is wanted for the massacre of five Brahmins and was absconding. He appeared in public onlyafter the BSP shortlisted him for Hamirpur.A Dalit woman bearing a child was beaten up mercilessly in Shitalpur village of this district by BJP supporters because she refused to pull down the BSP flag from atop her house.It was out of sheer fear of reprisal from dacoit gangs that a large number of villagers in the Etawah-Auriya belt have fled. There were reports of people leaving their homes in Kaitholi, Asewa, Baain and Niyamatpur villages in this region. ``It is true that they are moving out but it's because of economic considerations and not out of fear,'' is how Auriya SP R.P.Singh explains the situation.BJP leader Madan Lal Porwal points out that ``party workers cannot go to polling booths because dacoits rule the roost there. This explains why the polling percentage in several booths in this region swings wildly from 10 to 90, a sure sign of the polling having been hijacked,'' he says.The gangs which played a crucial role in the first phase of polling in UP in Bundelkhand and theneighbouring districts are headed by Dadua in Banda, Lalaram and Nirbhay Gujjar in Etawah and parts of Kanpur Dehat and Salim Gujar and Ratan Gujar in Hamirpur and adjoining districts.
