Stray cattle may devour saffron votes in Uttar Pradesh

Forty-year-old Rajwati Devi, a resident of Raipur village in the Sitapur district, about 90 kilometres from the state capital of Lucknow, who owned a small piece of agricultural land, burst out angrily when she was asked about the stray cattle problem as if she was waiting to vent out his feelings.

"Chutta pashu sari fasal char ja rahen hain....kitna rakhwali karen...bachhe din mein school nahin jate khet ki rakhwali karte hain aur raat mein bade log khet mein rahte hain (stray cattle graze the standing crops....we don't know how to guard our fields....the children guard the fields in the day and don't go to the schools and at nights the elders do the same thing)," Rajwati says.

Rajwati's feelings reverberate in almost every part of the state with varying degrees of destruction caused by the stray cattle to the standing crops of the farmers across the state.

'Dhokha' (deception...a human-like structure in the middle of the field), 'machans' (an elevated platform on the edge of the fields made from bamboo sticks and wood on which a person can sit or sleep and keep a watch on the stray cattle) and fencing around the fields with crops are a common sight as one drives through the highways as well as the roads connecting the villages.

Rajwati said that she used to harvest four to five quintals of wheat from agricultural land but this year she was sure the harvest would be less than two quintals. ''Almost half of the crops have been destroyed by the stray cattle,'' she said. Similar is the story of many others in her village.

A little farther from her village, one could find herds of stray cattle resting under the shade of trees. ''They rest in the daytime and start roaming during the nights....you can hear the shouts of the villagers as they try to scare them away throughout the nights,'' said Raju Kumar Singh, another resident.

Stray cattle have already become an issue in the ongoing assembly polls in UP with almost all the opposition party leaders raising the same at their election meetings and assuring the people to resolve the issue if their party forms the next government in the state.

Although the BJP leaders refuse to concede that the stray cattle population has risen sharply in the state, an official report says that there were more than 11.8 lakh stray cattle in the state in 2019. The report says that the number of stray cattle in the country decreased by 3.2 per cent between 2012 and 2019 but in UP it has increased by a whopping 17 per cent.

''Stray cattle is certainly an issue in this polls....those whose crops have been destroyed will give a befitting reply to the BJP in the polls.....anyone who is into farming has suffered losses because of the stray cattle,'' said Munna Lal, a farmer in the neighbouring Lakhimpur Kheri district.

The enormity of the problem could be gauged from the fact that the UP chief secretary, almost immediately taking charge a few months back, directed the district magistrates to launch a special drive to catch all the stray cattle.

Frustrated farmers had even decided to take the stray cattle from their villages to the state capital of Lucknow and tie them at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's residence. Though they did try but could not succeed as the authorities thwarted their plans. At some places, angry farmers had herded the stray cattle into the primary schools in the villages and locked the gates from outside.

Though the state government claims that it had provided funds to the village pradhans to set up cow shelters to house these stray cattle, this correspondent did not find the shelters in villages in Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Hardoi and Unnao districts. Wherever there were cow shelters, they were full and had no space for any more cattle.

BJP leaders may be saying that the stray cattle was a non-issue, the farmers think otherwise. ''There is resentment...whether it will hit the BJP's electoral prospects is yet to be seen,'' said Jaswant Dwivedi, a resident of Jamkhanwa village.

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