It is a bustling evening at the village intersection. Nearby, at Natthu’s tea stall, a kettle full of tea is bubbling away. Four youngsters come to the stall and order four teas and a plate of pakoras. As soon as one of them is about to pick up the order, he is held by the kurta pajama-clad netaji who looks at him and says: “Arrey! Let it be! You are like my son. Let me pay the bill.” He promptly fists a hundred rupee note to Natthu chaiwala from his own pockets.

This incident occurs at the intersection of Anaja village in Uttar Pradesh’s Devariya district and the netaji who zealously foots the tab of the local’s refreshments is aspiring to contest the elections for the gram pradhan. The evening where he had paid for the four village lads, he had treated several more similarly. That evening and the following morning, Thakur saheb’s lavish treat had become the talk of the entire village.

The scene witnessed at the Anjana village intersection in Devariya can also be witnessed in many villages across Uttar Pradesh. The local politicians are busy organizing health camps and tirelessly promoting themselves while offering refreshments to any type of gathering in their respective villages. Such treats and scenes are attributed to the fast-approaching elections which will be announced any time this year for more than 58,000 gram panchayats across Uttar Pradesh. Keeping this mind, no gram pradhan candidate wishes to dilute his claim.

This pre-election hustle-bustle is also visible in Ranjitpur Sonhara gram panchayat of Barabanki district. Santosh Mishra, a resident of the village, said: “Ever since the politicians have come to know of the elections happening within a year, they have made themselves visible and accessible. They throng to popular eateries and paan shops wherein they spend and speak out heartily. This being just the beginning, the coming days shall see them spend increasingly more money.”

Like Santosh Mishra, Vipin Gautam of Barabanki’s Cheda gram panchayat also said: “A clear change is seen in the behavior of gram pradhan from the past few months. The Pradhan’s doorstep is readily providing paan to paan-lovers and tea to the waiting while he describes his contribution towards village development.”

Bareilly also presents a similar picture. Sachin Gangwar, a resident of a village under the Pipauli gram panchayat, informed: “With only a year to the elections, many other local politicians, besides the gram pradhan, are making appearances. Fault finding in the current pradhan’s methods has already been taken up. Other politicians are constantly enlightening people about the various scams that the pradhan has wrought. Till the time the elections are over, such a situation will prevail in the village.”

Talking about this situation, Dilip Tripathi, who is the pradhan of Hasudi gram panchayat in Siddarthnagar district, said: “Undoubtedly, before elections, the opposition busies itself in finding faults in the working of the existing pradhan. So is happening in my village where the opposition is talking to the villagers. However, this may be a good thing in a way; at least, politicians are reaching out to the common man. I have worked hard during my tenure about which I too shall talk to the people.” Dilip Tripathi is one among the few gram pradhans who were honored with Nanaji Deshmukh Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puruskar for his commendable work.

Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district is also fast catching up the election fever. Every day, its Pisanwa block office is visited by pradhans of the region accompanying villagers, primarily, for pension application. The Lilsi gram panchayat’s pradhan too had approached the office with four women applying for the widow pension. After a period of four years, these women’s waits finally seems to be getting over, right before the elections.

When pradhan Aditya Shukla was reminded of it he said, “Elections come and go, we are engaged in public service, so we’d always been serving our people. This isn’t new. Yes, many leaders wake up right before the elections, but we are not among them.”

Meanwhile, amidst the denial and acceptance from the pradhan, the village atmosphere gears itself for the coming elections, affecting most its voters who hold the key to the future of the local politicians.

(Virendra Singh from Barabanki and Mohit Shukla from Sitapur contributed to this story)