Uttar Pradesh Elections 2022: The many moods, colours and voices behind the vote...

Ahead of the seventh and final phase of the Uttar Pradesh state elections, Consulting Editor (Photo) Madhu Kapparath captures some of the action and colour on the campaign and voting trail since it be...

Mar 04, 2022, 18:30 IST7 min

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Unfazed by the crowding around her, Kanta Kirshanpal, a school teacher, helps the locals confirm their names on the electoral lists on the morning of the voting day in Baraut in Uttar Prade...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Shamim Hanif from a mohalla in Khail exercises her vote at the polling booth in Shamli. Articulate when asked if she exercised the choice of wearing a burqa, she asks, &ldquoWhat you don&rs...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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A polling official helps Rajni sign up before she casts her vote at the Mahawatpur booth in Baoli. Refusing to give her surname, Rajni said she was in a hurry because her ageing mother, who...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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A vast swathe of people cover the Sikar mela ground on the outskirts of Unnao, dwarfing the faraway stage where Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks. At many electronic screens, the villager...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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On the outskirts of Shamli, on agricultural land they have leased, Baburam and his brother Tejpal, make jaggery with the help of their sons. Baburam, who was working as a labourer in New De...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Anil Kumar lounges on his cot in Jat-dominated Taharpur Bhabisa, in the midst of a harvesting season in the country&rsquos biggest sugarcane growing state. He denies reports that farmer arr...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Farm labourers from Loharipur, some among them Dalit, leap over a divide on the highway on their way to their homes. They are unanimous in their choice of the vote and the reason behind it:...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Vehicles on the road to Gorakhpur often veer off onto mud embankments as the work on the Varanasi-Gorakhpur highway along Ami river gets underway at Ojhauli, Gorakhpur, February 12, 2022

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Deepak Rajbhar, a Class 10 student in Shivale, joins his neighbours as they dig for leftover bits of metal bars from a highway construction site that was previously used for casting concret...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Students stream out after a Maths class at Chetana Plus Coaching Centre in Dobhi, Jaunpur. Prince Maurya and Himanshu Singh (third and fourth from left) from SGS Inter College are aiming fo...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Aloft the rooftop of a modified bus, Samajwadi Party&rsquos Akhilesh Yadav rallies his supporters, mostly youth, at Alambagh as the bus winds through the traffic in Lucknow. Behind him, the...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Ask the shopkeepers and residents of the sliced-off buildings in Rani Ki Sarai, a main thoroughfare in Azamgarh, and they puzzle over why theirs were razed overnight when the new expressway...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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On a blazing afternoon, Bahujan Samaj Party&rsquos supporters mull listlessly around their candidate Sushil Kumar Sinha. A party that was formed to represent Bahujans (referring to Schedule...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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A devotee pays obeisance to a gallery of deified yogis of India at the Gorakhnath Math, founded by Gorakshanath (Circa early 11th century). The current chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, who ...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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A large hoarding of the Bharatiya Janata Party featuring the Modi-Yogi combine flanks the cantonment roundabout in Varanasi. â€‹At the famed chai addas in the bylanes of the ghats, the admi...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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In Mahawatpur, Baoli, 19-year-old Fareen Malik walks back home with her mother and her aunts after voting for the first time. "Everyone in this village votes for RLD candidate Jayant Chaudh...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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"My wife gets squeamish but getting a massage on the ghats is an ancient brahmin tradition," Abhishek Dwivedi shouts over the din of the ghats. Dwivedi is a sales manager for a shoe company...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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A persistent, pressing problem in village after village is the issue of stray cattle, ambling about in plain sight, and whose numbers have been rising since the BJP government put curbs on ...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Anand Jatav erects a string-lined fence around his little patch of land to keep out the cattle, a day after they ate into a part of his field. A dalit by caste, Anand is mulling over sellin...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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BJP workers conduct a door-to-door campaign to canvas for votes in the narrow residential alleys adjoining Dasaswamedh Ghat, Varanasi. The workers constantly pose with each householder, and...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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82-year-old Jatamba Devi is handed a pamphlet by the BJP workers during a door-to-door campaign. She&rsquos not sure if she&rsquoll be up to stepping out on voting day, but she says "Modi k...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Much has been written about BJP&rsquos Rs 800-crore Kashi Vishwanath temple project in Varanasi to revamp the holiest Hindu shrine. It sought to decongest (by moving habitats), spruce up an...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Sri Mohan Giri, the sadhu in charge of Sri Shambhu Panchdashnam Aavahan Akhada at Dasaswamedh Ghat mulls over the question put to him: "Is this transformed Kashi Temple the new seat of gove...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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On a cold foggy morning at the Bhurekhan&rsquos Mazaar, Savinder Kumar and Mohammad Yunus speak of Mahwatpur, their village of mixed castes and religions. "We all eat out of the same plate....

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Rajesh Kumar Sharma isn&rsquot a Banarasi babu&mdashhe moved here from Chandoli, Nathupur, 12 years ago. But he has a prime spot for his barbershop. "Everyone admires Modiji, but I don&rsqu...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Priyanka Gandhi was late to arrive at her home turf, but the crowd, majority of them women, waited patiently at a stage set in front of a large courtyard flanked by a State Bank of India br...

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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Cholapur-based brothers Arif and Ashik Ansari are master weavers of the exquisite dhakai jamdani that involves months of intricate work on a loom&mdasha learning that goes back generations ...

Image by Madhu Kapparath