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'Our houses have collapsed, we don't have money for food -- and they are having elections!'

Chindu Sreedharan in Asthranga

I hadn't quite believed what the government official in Asthranga had told me.

"The people here are politically very aware," he had stressed. "Even in the villages, they know what's happening not only in Bhubaneswar but in Delhi too."

For a poor state like Orissa where the literacy rate is downright depressing, that sounded an exaggeration to me.

I was wrong. Seven kilometres from Asthranga proper, in Nuagad, I came across proof of that.

Of course the group who gathered around me knew their politics. They knew politicians. They knew how they worked. And they had no hope in them.

"What will the election bring?" asked one. "We don't have houses to live in, we don't have food to eat. Will it give us that?"

Nuagad is on the seashore. One of the four severely-affected gram panchayats in Asthranga block, which falls in Puri district, it lost over 40 people to the super cyclone. Very few houses survived the tidal waves. Most people now live in thatched huts, which have sprung up in clutters by the road.

"We don't need an election now," said another, who identified himself as S K Mohanty.

"Our houses have collapsed, we don't have money for food -- and they are having elections!"

That the election was an imposition on these poor people was clear even in Bhubaneswar, nearly two hours away by road. Officials working to rehabilitate the cyclone-affected said relief activities had slowed down thanks to poll preparations.

In Asthranga, it was ironic seeing government officials worrying about the construction of temporary polling booths -- many of the earlier identified ones have been damaged, you see -- when they should be thinking about housing the affected. All in all, the election looked a cruel joke here.

"This is the last election we will vote in," Maheshwar Biswal, a leader of sorts hereabout, was seething. "This is the last chance we give the politicians. We will not vote in the next election!"

Nuagad is part of the Kakatpur assembly constituency. As in most parts of Orissa, it is a straight fight between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Biju Janata Dal combine. The 179,536 voters here, thus, need to choose between Congressman Satyabrata Patra and BJD's Surendra Nath Naik.

But it will not be either of these that Biswal will vote for. "I was a Congressman till recently. But I will not vote for it," he said. "That party never even bothered to come here when we needed them most after the cyclone."

The group nodded vigorously.

"I will give my vote to him," said Biswal, pointing to the banner of an independent candidate, Sishir Kant Biswal. I know he will not win, but let my last vote be for him."

The others, however, weren't as pessimistic as Biswal. "We will vote for the BJD this time," a youth said. "Maybe they will do something."

The Congress, the villagers said, had turned its back on them after the cyclone. The local MLAs and leaders had disappeared. It was only the BJP and BJD activists who had come to their aid.

Corruption among government officials had added to the anti-Congress feelings. The villagers claimed that many have been cheated out of compensation. The government, it would appear, was paying Rs 2,000 to mend damaged houses to each family head. In true Indian style, the block officials are taking a Rs 500 cut out of this, the villagers allege.

"It will be very difficult for the Congress to win in the coastal belt," said S K Mohanty, as he took me around showing the destruction the cyclone had wreaked.

Concrete houses, registering moderate to severe damages, were many. The fields were dirty brown and wouldn't produce anything for quite some time. And most of the trees -- those that were still standing, that is -- leaned nearly 45 degrees towards the sea marking the way the waves had retreated. Most houses closer to the sea had been completely washed away. A mass of thatched huts now replaced them.

The sad state of affairs here however hadn't affected electioneering. That continued with vigour. There were banners in the villages, campaign vehicles moving around. And at every major junction, there were blaring microphones.

"Don't worry, they [the Congress and BJD] have got money for that," a government official had told me disgustedly.

"We will give the BJD one chance," a villager said as I prepared to leave. "We will see what they do. If they too fail us, we will boycott our votes next time."

Assembly Election 2000

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