By Sidharth Mishra

The first round of polls in Uttar Pradesh covering 73 of 403 Assembly constituencies is over. The worst fears of the BJP mandarins are coming true; if the poll percentage is any indication. The turnout was estimated at around 64 per cent till the close of polling. Though the first phase witnessed a three per cent rise in voter turnout, as in the same phase in 2012, covering these Assembly constituencies, it was 61 per cent, its district-level break-up which is throwing the real picture. According to Election Commission records, Etah recorded 73 per cent turnout, Muzaffarnagar 65 per cent, Bulandshahr 64 per cent, Noida 60 per cent, and Ghaziabad 57 per cent. Taking the analysis to more micro-level, a case study shows that in the upmarket Kaushambi locality of Sahibabad seat on Delhi-UP border barely managed to cross 50 per cent mark, wherein minority and low-income group dominated booths of Pasonda village and Khora locality in the same constituency the turnout was huge. The Sahibabad seat overall recorded a turnout of mere 51 per cent. In the neighbouring Ghaziabad seat, it was worse touching just 50 per cent. The district-wise percentage of Ghaziabad managed a somewhat better show, thanks to the performance in the rural seats like Muradnagar. The EC figures clearly indicate that Etah, a Samajwadi Party stronghold, has witnessed eight per cent higher polling at 73 per cent compared to communally polarised district of Muzzafarnagar at 65 per cent

By Sidharth Mishra

Last week, it snowed in the higher reaches of Uttarakhand. Cold winds sweep down the hills to the valleys, making it increasingly difficult to campaign for the Assembly polls scheduled for February 15. This is an unusual battle being fought. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has done, to use a cricketing euphemism, a Kerry Packer on the ruling Congress.

For those not interested in cricket, Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer was an Australian media tycoon. The Packer family company owned a controlling interest in both the Channel Nine television network and leading Australian publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later merged to form Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL). Outside Australia, Packer was best known for founding World Series Cricket. Unable to get the exclusive telecasting rights for the England-Australia 1976 test series for Channel 9, owned by him, he created an alternative cricket series involving leading players of the world. At the height of World Series Cricket (WSC) exhibition matches, the leading teams of Australia and West Indies saw their leading lights defecting to Packer camp. This time around Congress has witnessed 11 of its leading lights in Uttarakhand defect to the BJP. The numbers are indeed good enough to form a cricket team.

Like Alvin Kallicharan of West Indies and Bobby Simpson of Australia, one gets an impression that Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat has been left to lead a ramshackle team into the polls. However, the comparisons end here. The defections have to an extent revived the fortunes of the Congress party, which till about a year back was slated to be swept out of the office.

By Sidharth Mishra

Though Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made no overt announcement of any populist schemes, with the Election Commission keeping a hawk's eye on the annual Budget being presented in Lok Sabha, he must have strained his ears to hear the applause from the rural sector. It cannot be mere coincidence that Budget for the Financial Year 2017-18 is rural centric and addresses a plenty of issues facing the farmers of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur, the states going to the polls to elect a new legislative Assembly.

Secondly, the Budget also seeks to make a major political point on the issue of corruption in public life. Taking up the issue of political funding Jaitley's third Budget has moved to slash the anonymous donation limit from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2000, above which the parties will have to disclose the identity of the donor, makes huge political sense.

By Sidharth Mishra

The sun and shadows have been playing games with the weather in western Uttar Pradesh for the past fortnight, keeping the majority farming community more concerned about the agricultural produce than the political harvest. Just 100 kilometres away from the national Capital, Khatauli in Muzzafarnagar district is more famous as a favorite watering hole for tourists on way to Uttarakhand; but agriculturally, too, it is an important grain mandi (wholesale market).

With lush green fields, washed with the recent rains, the farmers here are looking forward to a bumper sugarcane and wheat crop this season. Though initially, there were issues regarding late sowing of the crops on account of demonetisation, the same has been overcome thanks to centuries-long existing farmer-trader network in the region. It is this network, which forms both economic and political axis of the region.

By Sidharth Mishra

A decade ago, in the similar times, your reporter had traversed through the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand to cover Assembly elections in the winter of 2007. We drove for more than 2000 kilometres through the hill roads, at times through sleet and rain, and extreme cold to understand poll nuances in a politically very sensitive state.

Till then, one had known Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari from a reasonable distance. I was yet to enter journalism when he last held office in Lucknow as Chief Minister. In the 1990s, one did follow his fortunes, especially as a rebel Congress leader, who floated a party with another veteran Arjun Singh. One did trail him in Nainital-Bahedi constituency during frequent Lok Sabha polls which were held in the 1990s, which he lost in 1998 but had won in 1996 and 1999.

Tiwari during the brief interactions during those campaign trails never gave any impression that he favoured a separate hill state carved out of Uttar Pradesh, for which the BJP was leading an agitation. Rather, he was opposed to the idea of the hill state.

By Sidharth Mishra

In 2011, when Anna Hazare was running a quasi-political “nautanki” (a kind of folk theatre) before the annual staging of Ramlila, the nation’s best-known folk drama, at the historic ground in the national Capital, many compared him to Mahatma Gandhi. Your reporter in the Notebook columns had taken the position, going much against the flow of public sentiments, that a certain Anna Hazare, just because he undertook fasts at the drop of a hat, could not be compared to Gandhi.

During those days of soaring public passion generated by Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, a seminar was organised at Constitution Club to understand the genre and intent of the agitation launched by the farmer leader from Maharashtra. Your reporter was invited to put forth his point of view and was roundly heckled for acting as a ‘government’s stooge’, as he refused to swim with the tide. After much persuasion by the organisers, when I was finally allowed to have my turn at the microphone, I asked a question if anybody recalled Mahatma holding any major agitation in New Delhi.

Silence fell in the auditorium. Champaran, Dandi, Kheda, Noakhali - the names so closely associated with Mahatma, were all located at a distance of 1000 kilometres from Delhi, if not more.

By Sidharth Mishra

India’s long-serving cricket Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has decided to give up the job of skipper. Ever since he announced his decision last week, just ahead of the meeting of the selection committee, which chose the teams for the one-day internationals and T20 matches, articles eulogising his contribution have flooded the newspaper pages. Today’s Notebook will also be in the same genre.

In the autumn of 2007, I was in Dehradun to drop my daughter at her boarding school. To overcome the pangs of separation from our child that awaited us, we went out for a family dinner. Cricket was the last thing on our minds. Dehradun then used to be, and still is to an extent, a sleepy city. The restaurant was across the road (the arterial Rajpur Road) from our hotel.

As we came out from the restaurant, we saw a huge procession of cheerful bikers passing on the road, making us wait a while before we could cross and reach the hotel’s lobby. It was here that it sank into us that the Indian team under Mahendra Singh Dhoni had won the T20 World Cup beating arch-rivals Pakistan.

Dhoni was the hero of the moment as he had handed over the ball to most underrated, and rightly so, bowler Joginder Sharma to win the day for us.

By Sidharth Mishra

The Election Commission will take time to decide which faction of the Samajwadi Party deserves to go to the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh with the cycle symbol. However, the ramshackle delegation which the party’s deposed President Mulayam Singh Yadav led the Election Commission to stake claim for the symbol was proof enough to show who commanded the support of the Samajwadi Party cadres. An isolated Shivpal Singh Yadav and the highly discredited political duo of Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh and his colleague Jaya Prada made up the delegation which Mulayam Singh led to the Nirvachan Sadan.

The reluctance of any prominent “Samajwadi” face to join the foursome clearly shows that the party satraps have decided to join the ranks either with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav or at least not annoy him by showing open support for the senior Yadav. Even a maverick leader like Azam Khan, the party’s Muslim face, has decided to play sober and peacemaker for now, indicating that he would use his position to buy peace with the aging patriarch for the rebellious son rather than counter latter’s moves.