UP elections 2017: Poll promises have not changed in 15 years; here's why

Pihani, a cluster of villages near Lucknow, illustrates why the state has not developed

Pihani, UP Elections 2017 : For 16 years, Kailash Rai (not his real name), 49, has been commuting six hours every working day between his home in the state capital Lucknow and the government degree college where he teaches in Pihani, 135 km to the northwest.

A political-science lecturer, Rai cannot move with his family to Pihani, a cluster of over 100 villages (called a kasba) in Hardoi district, with less than 40,000 families as per Census 2011. When he started working there in 2000, it lacked the basic public facilities–regular power supply, good roads, public transport and good medical services.

Pihani remains an economic backwater. In the ongoing assembly elections, UP’s incumbent and contesting politicians are still promising the basic facilities they did 16 years ago: Electricity, buses and jobs, along with laptops and free data for poor youth.

a government degree college, a state-run industrial training institute (ITI) and two private degree colleges–more than the Indian average of 27 colleges per 100,000 youth in the 18-23 age group, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2014-15. But it has been unable to produce talent to run local educational institutions, banks and medical centres.

UP has the highest number of colleges in any Indian state (6,026), according to AISHE 2014-15, but it has been unable to produce qualified workforce to drive development, as IndiaSpend reported on February 11, 2017.

UP is India’s most populous and youngest state–its median age is 23–and the flaws in its development model typified by Pihani explain why its towns and village clusters (blocks with a population of less than 250,000 in 2011) cannot cope with the aspirations of its people, especially with regard to education and employment.

Pihani’s dropout rate of 36% at elementary school level exceeds UP’s overall rate of 21%. Like other village clusters in the state, connections to bigger cities are limited because there are few railway links, hardly any feeder roads to highways or efficient public transport services. Less than half the houses in the villages have electricity. (more)

In Lucknow, Modi echoes Indira Gandhi but doesn't announce any gains

Modi said his opponents have become "politically irrelevant'

Breaking News : Prime Minister. Narendra Modi today addressed a massive public rally in Lucknow, to launch his campaign for Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. He didn’t announce any new ‘gains’ after the 50-days of note ban ‘pain’, and only cursorily referred to the promises he made on the New Year’s Eve.

Modi said his opponents have become “politically irrelevant”, and even echoed former prime minister Indira Gandhi. She had famously said in her 1971 election campaign, where her party’s slogan was “Garibi Hatao’, remove poverty: “Wah kahate hain Indira hatao, hum kahate hain garibi hatao’’ (my opponents call for Indira’s removal, I want poverty to be removed).

In Lucknow, Modi said all opposition parties have joined forces against him. He said that the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party never see eye to eye but have in once voice criticized the note ban decision. “Wah kahate hain Modi hatao, main kahata hoon kaladhan hatao, bhrashtachar hatao (they say remove Modi, I say end black money, end corruption),” the PM said.
Modi impressed upon party workers and the public how the large gathering at the rally was proof that the BJP had already won the assembly polls. It was reminiscent of the large public rallies that Modi had addressed all across Bihar in the assembly polls in the state in October-November, where he would present the large crowds that turned up for his public meetings as a fait accompli for the elections. However, the coming together of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United and Congress ensured the BJP and its allies were decimated in the polls.(more)