In migration-hit Chhatarpur, a control room coaxes voters to exercise their franchise

In Chhatarpur, a district hit by migration, the administration is calling & visiting migrants in cities to encourage them to return home to vote. 31,690 voters have migrated from Chhatarpur & many homes are occupied only by elderly people or women.

In the migration-hit Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region, the administration has set up a special control room to call and convince people who have moved to the metros to eke out a living, to return to their home villages just for polling day on November 17.

A team of officials has started a tour to personally visit migrants in the cities, many of whom left due to unending agrarian distress, asking them to come exercise their franchise; postcards are being sent with the same appeal.

When Pramod Chaurasiya, native of Panagar village, received a call from the district control room, he had had no plans to come to his home town this Diwali; but now, he has changed his mind. “We must vote to bring the right person to power who can work for the poor farmers of Chhatarpur so that people like me don’t have to leave our homes and families in search of employment,” he said.

In Chhatarpur, a district which has been an epicentre of exodus for a young population, the long queues of migrants who came back home during the first COVID-19 lockdown made headlines. With a population of 17.5 lakh, the district has more than 14 lakh voters spread across six Assembly constituencies, of which three were won by the Congress in 2018. Two others, mostly rural, were won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while the remaining seat went to a Samajwadi Party candidate, who later joined BJP.

According to the district administration, 31,690 voters have migrated from Chhatarpur.

“This number is a joke. During COVID, around two lakh people have come back in several villages here. Those who migrate for short durations are even more than two lakh,” said J.P. Mishra, an economics professor at Chhatarpur’s Maharaja Chhatrasal Bundelkhand University.

The scale of migration can be gauged from the common estimation that at least one man from each rural household goes to the metros every year in search of a better life than the cruel vagaries of rain-fed farming. After crop failure, debts and unemployment are the major reasons for migration from Chhatarpur.