In Mewat, Yogendra Yadav banks on Modi threat

An unlikely politician held a 16-hour-long campaign in the rugged land of Mewat, a district of Haryana that borders Rajasthan. Soft spoken and dressed in a traditional outfit, this politician has been in the public eye for a long time now, never in his current avatar, but as a number crunching psephologist, who during a two-decade-long career managed to predict the outcome of mutiple elections almost accurately. In the fray in this election, Yogendra Yadav employs a unusual style of campaigning while in Mewat, a region that is home to many Muslims, a votebank that will the decide the fate of the Gurgaon constituency in which he is contesting. Yadav will face off against Rao Inderjeet Singh, a former Congress MP, who switched sides to the BJP only two months before the election. But Yadav isn’t new to Mewat, which has been the epicentre of his social activism for over a decade now. He didn’t fail to remind the people he meets about this. “It all started with the movement for the demand of a separate district of Mewat,” he told a gathering of around 60 people in the village of Gau, that is located around two kilometres from the Rajasthan border. “I have been here to fight with you to get a district hospital,” he said. He reminded the crowd that the issues they have been fighting for have not been resolved and still bother them. [caption id=“attachment_1434677” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Yogendra Yadav is contesting from Gurgaon. PTI[/caption] “But unfortunately, I cannot talk about these issues today. Today there is a bigger threat and the name of that threat is Narendra Modi. A decisive man, who wants to divide the country. A man who will invoke a fight between brothers,” he said and then paused for breath. Unlike big campaign rallies where audiences cheer during such pauses, Yadav’s audience remains silent and waits for him to continue. For the first time someone, who they believe has influence reach in Delhi, was speaking to them in years. None of the 30 stops he made during his campaign saw people react to anything he said against Modi. But they didn’t ignore him either. “Mewat witnesses everything that can go wrong with Muslims,” Mohammad Idris, a resident of Ferozpur, said, standing some distance away from a group of people interacting with Yadav. “The Gopal Gar incident still resonates with people. Congress ki hi sarkar thi woh( It was a Congress government at the time),” he said, referring to the incident in Rajasthan’s Gopalgarh, where 10 Muslims were killed following firing by the police to quell a protest related to a land deal. Yadav couldn’t have picked a better place to speak of the effects of a communal divide. Mewat has traditionally been a Congress bastion due a majority of its residents being Muslim. But the region has also pledged its allegiance to Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). The current MP had a slim chance of getting the support of the people here following his switch to the BJP, but staying on in the Congress wouldn’t have helped either.   “There is nothing for the farmers here. Fodder and fertiliser is becoming costly everyday,” Fajru, a farmer in his seventies, said. Despite owning 7.5 acres of land, he said “the condition of farmers in Mewat couldn’t get any worse.” During his campaign, Yadav also talked about the Sachar committee report on minorities. “I always thought the condition of Muslims is the worst in Bihar but the Sachar Committee report says that it is the worst in Haryana,” he said. Yadav mentioned this fact at every stop and squeezed it into every conversation during his campaign. Again there are no cheers from his audience about their own plight. The former psephologist also explained to his audience why he was targeting Modi on communalism rather than corruption, an issue that the party targets him on at other places. “This isn’t the first time I’m talking about Narendra Modi but I speak against Modi on every platform. But outside this constituency people are more interested in listening to Modi’s role in corruption. But for the people here it’s a very specific issue, which resonates with them,” he said. Yadav also warned his audience not to vote for the INLD since it has pledged support to BJP in this election. “Your vote might not go to the lotus directly but even the vote for INLD will be synonymous with that,” Yadav told his audience. “That’s what BJP wants. To divide the votes and gain from it. But don’t break. It’s Mewat only, where Mahatma Gandhi came during the partition and stopped the Muslims who were fleeing to Pakistan,” he said. “Now it’s up to you whether you will support Modi and divide,  or stay on the path shown by Gandhi and remain as an united nation,” he said to his audience that continued listening gravely. At the end of a day of campaigning, Yadav met with a group of village heads in the village of Kankarheri, and the topic of conversation wasn’t Modi any more. “I have only one request to make to you…Please for next 25 days forget your everyday equations. No caste, no community, no Jat, Chaudhry or Meo divides. Let’s just think for the betterment of this place,” he told the gathering. Better known among this group of people, his words finally evoke some cheers. “This is where he is at his best. Addressing the people personally,” Vivek Yadav, Yadav’s nephew and a PHD student from Columbia University, said. Vivek has taken a six-month-long sabbatical to assist his uncle in his campaign. Speaking to Firstpost, Yadav only corroborates his nephew’s view about his ability to connect with people at large rallies. “I don’t like the concept of big rallies. Not only is it a distant communication but the people who come to big rallies are committed supporters,” he said. “But these people are listening. You can look into their eyes and speak. They are conversing with me,” Yadav said. The former psephologist believes that the residents of Mewat will have a major role to play in deciding the fate of Gurgaon constituency. “The margin of improvement is very low in the rest of Gurgaon but in Mewat, where we started very low, can go very high,” he said. “The urban Gurgaon that we know is only five percent of the total votes here. But these are the people who will vote in numbers,” Yadav said. However, he denies that it is his experience as a psephologist that is helping him. “I can not use my expertise of numbers in my campaign. That is like asking Amartya Sen on how to invest in share market,” he said. With that Yadav smiled to get off the car to address another group of people to listen to him.