Voters are the only hope for Uttar Pradesh this elections

Madhu races her hand against time. She still has got 40 chapatis to make, other than the usual main course dinner, because there are some guests visiting our home tonight. My wife tries to help the poor lady but she declines, humbly.

I can see her face riddled with pain due to cervical spondylosis. She has got four more houses to go for cooking. Because she has got four more lives to feed, back home.

Madhu, 34, is a widow from a remote village of Kanpur with four kids to look after and fight against the whole world to survive.

At the age of 16, she was sold off by her father to a 45-year-old man, nearly his age, in the name of marriage to save the family from abject poverty because she was the sixth daughter of her parents.

Her struggle began from there. Her husband was an alcoholic and a gambler. With him Madhu had four children. The man became paralytic a few years after their marriage and Madhu faced more hardships in running the family.

When the man died, she was left with a burden of debt incurred due to gambling and four innocent lives to look after... and the whole world to conspire against her because she was a young widow with a beautiful smile.

Till then, every moment she struggles hard to live a respectful life, away from the lustful eyes of the men around her. She works harder to give education to her three daughters and a son, which she herself missed out miserably in her life.

Tomorrow morning, when millions of Madhus will be standing in the queue to vote for their future in Uttar Pradesh, she will still be fighting her own battle to make a decent life for herself without any support from the existing system around her.

With 200 million people, Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India. All big honchos of politics are vying to win the heart of UP.

To them each and every vote matters. These hapless and helpless women like Madhu are also their voters but for Madhu it hardly matters.

When millions of rupees fly in the air for political campaigns, Madhu finds no support for her children’s education, neither for her livelihood nor for her health. An illiterate young widow, a mother of four is unaware of how to look for help from the state.

She is scared to approach the local leaders or administration in UP as she believes that "when you ask for help, people jump in to take advantage of a vulnerable woman". So she toils without making any noise, only to ensure that her daughters' lives don’t turn out like hers.

Every day, on my desk in the newsroom, I find similar or more horrific stories than Madhu’s from different parts of UP. Every day we are flooded with sordid tales of atrocities on women in the largest state of the country.

The statistics show that performance parameters of UP, such as crime and employment generation, have only degenerated over the years. The violence against women has only increased, the number of riots and communal tensions have only risen from year to year.

We have become so tolerant and cynical that these stories hardly affect our conscience anymore. Standing in the 21^st century, the politics of UP still revolves largely around caste, creed and religion.

Political parties will refute this by saying that development and law and order are the main issues this time, but when it comes to analysing the vote percentage, all parties and sephologists agree that caste, creed and religion play a major role in counting votes.

I don't know what Madhu's last name is. She never reveals it, like many others in UP. I was born in Moradabad but grew up in Bengal and this concept of hiding one’s last name was a new thing for me in UP.

Despite all evils of communism, probably the best thing that 34 years of Left rule in Bengal has done is that nobody is interested in knowing anyone's last name to figure out which caste or community they belong to. So we never bothered to hide it.

The battle for UP begins in the hotbed of social discrimination, western Uttar Pradesh, tomorrow. After decades of riots, communal and social flare-ups, we still don’t question politicians that who gives them the right to divide us in the name of the political rhetoric called “development”?

For decades we are allowing these political leaders to cajole and fool us. Just before getting swayed away with the biggest circus of democracy in the morning, tonight I appeal to the conscience of the millions of voters, to stop for a while, turn and look at inwards… think with clear vision… are you sure your mandate will bring some positive change in your life?

Will it ensure security, education, dignity and health to millions of Madhus and their daughters?

Because this is a queer world strung by karma… if they are not fine, your daughter and my daughter are also not safe in this world!

So please vote mindfully!

Also read: Why UP leaves it to Lord Ram every election