Governance
Voting without voters: Few migrant workers cast ballot for Lok Sabha and assembly polls in western Odisha
Constituencies with high migration levels witness poor voter turnout
By Ajit Panda
Published: Wednesday 22 May 2024
Despite efforts to encourage voter participation, only a small fraction of western Odisha’s migrant population returned home to vote this time. In addition to the Lok Sabha elections, the state is holding legislative assembly elections simultaneously.
Gopinath Parabhoe, from Mudkani village, under the Kantabanji assembly constituency in Balangir district, returned to his village a day before the election to exercise his right to vote. “I didn’t want to miss this event. Voting signifies that I continue to be an inhabitant of my village,” he said.
Parabhoe earns a daily wage working in a brick kiln in Bengaluru with his wife. He took one week off from work to vote. “I had to spend around Rs 3,000 for this trip. I could not bring my wife with me from work because it would have cost me more,” he explained.
Read more: Voting without voters: Parties set up call centres to woo migrant voters, but few return
His wife, who was staying at the kiln with their seven-year-old daughter, missed the ballot. But Parabhoe said the couple was helpless. “What could we do? The journey for two more people would have cost us an additional Rs 5,000. We intend to buy a homestead plot in the village, so we must save for it,” he said.
On his return trip, the migrant worker was accompanied by seventeen other workers from various kilns in Bengaluru. He estimated that over 500 migrants returned from Bengaluru and Hyderabad to vote.
On May 20, 2024, five parliamentary constituencies went to the polls in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections and 36 constituencies in the state assembly elections.
The Balangir district, which witnesses a significant population migrating for work, had an estimated voter turnout of 71.46 per cent. The turnout in the Kantabanji, Patnagarh and Titlagarh Assembly segments, Odisha’s most migration-prone areas, was 67.96 per cent, 68.34 per cent and 68.25 per cent, respectively. The fate of incumbent Chief Minister and Biju Janata Jal leader Naveen Patnaik has been sealed in the ballot boxes of Kantabanji.
Between 2019 and 2024, Kantabanji’s voting percentage did not change significantly. In the Patnagarh constituency, turnout in 2019 was 71.24 per cent, 3 per cent higher than in 2024. Titlagarh’s voter turnout has also dropped by 3.5 per cent, from 71.8 per cent.
According to people working on migration issues in Balangir district, approximately 200,000 voters have been denied the right to vote as a result of migration. “Every year, more than two lakh workers leave to work in brick kilns, construction sites and textile mills, among other places. They usually return during the first week of June. By this time, the election is over,” said Rajib Sagaria, a writer and social activist.
The candidate for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kantabanji, Laxman Bag, tried to bring some of the migrants back from their workplaces in some southern states for voting, said Sagaria. “I learned that he brought between 5,000 and 7,000 migrant workers, but I don’t think all of them have voted for him,” the activist said.
Bag was defeated by Indian National Congress candidate Santosh Singh Saluja in the constituency’s last election by 128 votes. This year, Bag is facing off with Patnaik along with Saluja, for the seat. The BJP candidate is fighting tooth and nail to win this time, including efforts like negotiating with employers to grant leave to the migrant labourers for voting.
Some labourers who had migrated to Odisha’s Brahmapur and Cuttack districts had returned before the election date along with some brick kiln workers working in Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam. “Our employers sent us back early because the weather (rain) was unsuitable for brick work. We were fortunate to be able to vote,” said one of the workers who returned just before the election and voted in Kantabanji.
Advocate Bishnu Sharma of Kantabanji City, who has been involved in migrant issues for the past twenty years, stated that migrant workers are unable to exercise their voting rights because no one — not the labour department, labour contractors or employers — takes responsibility for assisting them.
“The collector of Balangir had earlier stated that he would make every effort to ensure that the migrants returned to cast their votes, possibly under the impression that the number was only 12,000-13,000, as recorded. Later, he remained silent, which means he must have realised that the number was too high to manage,” Sagaria pointed out.
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