UP Elections 2017: Banda Misses Loud Campaigning That Pumped Its Economy

Banda: In any other election year, Banda would have come to life. Candidates would organise carnival-like public meetings, zip in and out of the town in long convoys of cars decked up with party flags, and vehicles transformed into election floats, fitted with loudspeakers belting out Bollywood-inspired songs adapted to take pot-shots at their rival candidate.

Not this year.

Banda votes with 52 other assembly segments in Uttar Pradesh on February 23. But this town south of the Yamuna in Bundelkhand region is so quiet that the low-key campaign - and not just the political fortunes of the candidates - has become the talking point.

Congress' Vivek Kumar Singh had retained the seat in the 2012 elections. And if he manages a third win, Singh would be the first to have three consecutive wins from the Banda seat.

Transporter Dharmendra Singh doesn't look like he cares about the poll outcome.

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He had been hoping that the money poured into elections by candidates would help breathe life into his business.

"There would be ten vehicles (in a convoy), even if it had two people sitting inside," Mr Dharmendra, who would organise vehicles for some candidates, recalled.

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A short distance from where he stands, lies the DJ Mandi, named for its row of music shops that have their own DJ. This time, they too have no takers either from the political parties that used to hire them to liven up their campaign. The ongoing marriage season is the only business they can bank on.

But local officials enforced the code of conduct so strictly that the local economy, which springs to life during elections, hasn't been able to stand on its feet.

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District magistrate Saroj Kumar says he was just doing his job; ensuring that every detail of the code of conduct was implemented. "We are monitoring it and taking strict action if it (the code) is violated," he said.

Locals agree that rules should be followed. "But one doesn't even feel that the elections are on," a resident lamented, missing the festivities that electoral politics came bundled with.