Migrant workers will swing vote

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">KHAGARIA: Jawahar Kesri, a distant cousin of former Congress president Sitaram Kesri and resident of Maheshkhunt village on NH-31 in this constituency, says ever since the highway was built in the 1950s, the lives of people changed for the better. Prior to this, the area was crime-prone and poverty-ridden.<br /><br />Corn grows in abundance here and after the highway was built its production multiplied.Today, it is the largest corn producing region of the country and also of sunflower from which edible oil is made.<br /><br />These two crops are exported to distant parts of the country and have brought in affluence.<br /><br />But the degeneration of NH-31 over the years has also led to serious problems. The traffic load is much more than it can take. There is a continuous flow of trucks as it connects Bihar to Bengal and the northeastern states like Assam and in the west to Gujarat and Mumbai. The road has taken a beating with virtually no repair work over years.<br /><br />However, villagers are hopeful that Prime Minister Vajpayee’s national highway project will again change things for the better. No wonder that one of the major demands here is the completion of the highway project. <br /><br />"Leave alone Khagaria, nowhere in Bihar has any work on the national highway progressed," Kesri laments.<br /><br />Most people from this village and this constituency go out for work. In fact, often there is shortage of labour here during the harvest season. Little wonder that politics is quite low on the agenda of people of this region. "This is the reason that the area is less violence prone," says Ramjivan Chaurasia.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the constituency has been dragged into controversy due to former RJD MP Ravindra Kumar Rana’s alleged involvement in the fodder scam. But the local residents say they are prepared to forgive him as he has publicly expressed an apology to the people. <br /><br />"<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Unhone humse mafi manga</span> (He sought our forgiveness)," another local resident said. Rana is pitted against sitting Samata MP Renu Kumari Singh. Then there is Bharat Yadav from the Kisan Vikas Party, apparently a rebel BJP candidate.<br /><br />There is no political issue here as such. But the problem faced by migrant workers — of being "dispossessed" of 50% of their earnings — on their way back home by train from their places of work in Punjab, Haryana or Maharashtra has caused quite a stir.</div> </div>