No vote, no voice: 1.7 million migrants sidelined in poll-bound Gujarat

After a 12-hour shift at the Shree Krishna Industrial Estate in Laksana, on the outskirts of Surat, Balakrishna Raut and his friends are at a tea stall which has a display board in the Odia language.

Raut made his way to Surat from Odisha’s Ganjam district in 1985 and has been here ever since.

“We work 12 hours a day for inadequate pay. The work is dangerous, and we could be fired at any time,” he says. Raut is one among millions of Odias running Surat’s famous textile industry.

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In the Surat region, which has 16 Assembly constituency seats, the BJP is fighting a steep battle against the enthused support that the new entrant AAP is finding among people. Yet, no one is talking about the migrants.

According to an estimate, there are over 17 lakh migrants, including 2.5 lakh Odias, 3 lakh from UP, 2 lakh from Bihar and 1 lakh Telugu people. The migrants form the backbone of the diamond and textile industries. Still, as many do not have a vote here, no one picks up their issues electorally.

Kanucharan, who runs a knick-knack shop and two Odia eateries, says that Surat is known as “second Odisha” in Ganjam. “All our festivals are celebrated here...,” he says.

Sanjay Patel of the Aajeevika Bureau in Surat, who has worked on the issues of textile workers for seven years, says while politicians promise help, not much happens after the elections. “They work in hot rooms at 126-decibel noise for 12 hours straight. There’s no social or job security; they can be fired for being absent for 3-4 days even after ten years of employment,” he says.

“Accidents are common in power looms, and workers get a weekly off only because the power goes off for a day in a week. Migrants in Gujarat, unlike in other states, usually thrive and do not leave. However, during the lockdown, the migrant crisis did not leave Surat untouched, and many workers protested here, too,” he adds.

BJP state president C R Paatil, the MP from Navsari, was a migrant himself. He is from north Maharashtra and moved to Gujarat in the 80s.

Dhawal Vasava of political consultancy firm PoliticalEDGE says, as per one estimate, there are close to 40,000 Odia voters and about 10,000 Telugu voters in Surat.

Patel says that since this is a fragmented constituency, no one picks their issue. Due to a high Odia population, Odia was introduced as a language in the Surat district’s local schools. The Odia government has spoken to the state government to build Odia Bhawan and an Odia colony here.

While AAP’s appeal for the working class has found resonance among many, the textile workers are left out. AAP candidate from Limbayat, which has a significant migrant population, says that the party’s promises for better education and free electricity will help the migrants as well.

Within the BJP, there is Ashok Jeerawala, the president of the Federation of Gujarat Weavers’ Welfare Association in Surat, and BJP’s in-charge of three Assembly constituencies says that the textile industry is facing issues, and profits have dropped. He has brought up the issues to the notice of textile minister Piyush Goyal, he says.

“We have asked for a Technology Upgradation Fund subsidy of 30%, which was in place earlier since we come under MSME. Our other demands — to decrease GST and to ban garment imports from China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been implemented,” he says.

When asked about the issues that workers face, he said, “There are none. We treat these workers like our children and pay them Rs 25,000-30,000. What complaints will they have?”