UP election draws migrant crowds in Mumbai railway stations, bus depots amid lockdown

The Covid-19 second wave-triggered mini-lockdown, gram panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh and wheat harvest season is resulting into migrants in the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR) heading for the north Indian state.

The financial capital of Mumbai and the larger MMR comprising the neighboring districts of Thane, Palghar and Raigad – has nearly 35 to 40 lakh migrant population.

After the mega-migration triggered by Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, nearly 75 to 80 per cent of the people have come back to Mumbai.

Majority of MMR’s migrant population is from Jaunpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Mirzapur, Sultanpur, Gazipur and Gorakhpur – and they include cab and auto drivers, daily labourers, gardeners, office staff, street-food vendors, carpenters, among others.

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But with the alarming surge in cases, the Uddhav Thackeray-led government has imposed strict measures – just short of a lockdown across Maharashtra.

“The gram panchayat polls in UP are as big as Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha polls. Besides, unlike Maharashtra, in UP the gram panchayat polls are held in one go. The network and bonding that they have with their villages compel them to go during the polls. Many of the migrant workers have voting rights in their hometowns and villages,” says veteran Mumbai-based political analyst Om Prakash Tiwari, who hails from Ayodhya.

The four-phased gram panchayat polls are scheduled during the second fortnight of April – and campaigning is reaching its peak.

With the weekdays night curfew and total weekend-lockdown set to affect livelihood in Maharashtra, many of the migrants are looking for the next available train or buses to head towards their native places.

As of now, the Central Railway is running nearly 2 dozen-plus special trains daily to Uttar Pradesh, while several people are going for private buses. Over the last couple of days, there has been a huge crowd of migrants in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus.

“We depend on daily wages. After last year’s lockdown, we are expecting that things would be normal, but again we are back to square one,” said Mahesh Prajapati, a daily-wage earner in Mumbai’s suburbs, who is looking for a ticket to head back home.

“Those who had tickets in advance, they are okay, but for those who are booking now, there is practically no ticket available,” said Vijay Singh, a senior community leader.

“The harvest season is very important this time as since the earnings from work in cities have been affected, people are dependent on agriculture earnings,” adds Surendra Mishra, a second-generation Mumbai resident.