Kurukshetra (Haryana): For the past few months, Gurnaam Singh Charhuni has been doing 20-hour shifts. His morning begins with meeting people at his home in Ladwa, a small hamlet near Kurukshetra in northern Haryana. He listens to the grievances of farmers and agricultural labourers who knock at his door, has a quick breakfast after, and then spends the rest of the day campaigning in villages.Charhuni, a farmers’ rights activist for the last 27 years, did not believe that he had a role to play in electoral politics. But after many years as an activist, he says, he realised that people like him need to contest polls and challenge the “hegemony” of established political parties. “These parties have nothing but false promises to offer to the country’s poor,” he says.The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader is now contesting as an independent candidate in the Ladwa constituency, an agrarian belt where he spent most of his life fighting for the rights of farmers. “I may not win, but I see these polls as a way to get in touch with those who do not figure anywhere in the imagination of the political class,” he says.Also Read: Haryana Politics Has Long Been the Arena of Dynasts and TurncoatsCharhuni has led many farmers struggles in the past, the most recent being against the Modi government in January 2019. His organisation, BKU, demanded that the Swaminathan Committee report that sought to double farmers’ income should be implemented soon. In another blockade he led in Kurukshetra, he and his colleagues wanted a farmers’ manifesto that they had prepared to be implemented. Most of their demands relate to better payments for farmers and labourers and increase in agricultural subsidies.The Wire met him late on Wednesday evening in a village called Sanwla, located off the Grand Trunk Road that links Ambala and New Delhi. His Mahindra Scorpio, with two loudspeakers connected on top, went past large tracts of agrarian fields to enter the Dalit corner of the village.A group of 30 people, including children and women, had already gathered there to receive him. Charhuni was welcomed with garlands by the community’s elders. They offered him a plastic chair to sit and begin his address. All this while, Charhuni held a microphone that was connected to the loudspeakers in his car.Gurnaam Singh Charhuni addresses a group of villagers. Photo: Harsh ChetwaniBefore he began his speech, a friend who accompanied him switched on the car’s headlights to brighten the dim village street.“MLA banna hamara maksad nahin hai, hum toh andolanari hai. Magar socha ki kisi ko toh in modern looteron ke khilaaf khada hona hoga ( My motive is to not become an MLA, I am an activist. But I thought that someone had to stand up to challenge the modern plunderers),” he began his speech.“Aaj ameer aur ameer ho gaya hai, gareeb aur gareeb ho gaya hai. Aaj kewal 9 logon ke pass desh ke 50 crore logon se jyada sampati hai (Today, the rich have become richer, the poor poorer. Today, the nine richest people have more wealth than 50 crore people of the country’s population),” he said.The small crowd listened to him and nodded in agreement. “Sahi baat hai (he is right),” an elderly person, who works as a labourer told me as Charhuni went on to speak about issues like banking sector crisis, its non-performing assets and rural distress.“Imagine we had a Rajya Sabha member, Vijay Mallya, who fled the country with a debt of almost Rs 9,000 crore,” Charhuni said.Not once did he seek votes but he did not spare his opponents. “I want to tell you that the BJP and Congress candidates do not owe anything to you. They are answerable to their parties which gave them election tickets. They would not have come to you asking for votes had they not been in the electoral battle. That is why I am asking you to think before you vote. Your vote is your greatest weapon,” he urged.“We always complain that our legislators are inaccessible. But we do not think enough when we vote,” he said, adding that both the BJP and Congress were “corporate stooges, nothing else”.Also Read: Ground Report: What Women’s Safety Means in Poll-Bound HaryanaInvoking Bhagat Singh, he said had the revolutionary leader lived on to see this day, he would have “waged another freedom struggle”.Attacking the Manoharlal Khattar-led BJP government in Haryana, he said, “Not a single step was taken by the state government to improve the lives of farmers and labourers. Yet, the BJP claims that the government is ‘gareebon ki sarkaar’. Government schools do not have enough teachers; government hospitals are understaffed. Our children are malnourished because they do not get adequate meals.”“At least 20 crore people of India do not have enough to eat two meals a day. Over the past five years, the income of neither the labourers nor the farmers has increased.”He alleged that India is firmly under the grip of the moneyed class. “Yehi saare punjipatiyon ne khud ke TV channel khade kar diye hai jo din raat unhi ka gungaan karte hai (The same moneyed people have started their own TV channels which sing paeans to them every day).”Soon after his speech, he and his friends handed over flyers to the villagers which had a demonstration of the electronic voting machine. With each one of them, he explained that his name is on the 12th slot against the symbol of a sugarcane farmer.Gurnaam Singh Charhuni. Photo: Harsh ChetwaniA contrasting taleCharhuni’s campaign contrasted with the prime minister’s rally in Kurukshetra’s theme park on the same day. The BJP workers were asked to mobilise crowds from as many as five districts of northern Haryana for Narendra Modi’s rally.As Modi’s focus lay on his government’s decision to dilute Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and his emphasis on national security, Charhuni chose to address bread-and-butter issues of the poor. The audience that the farmer leader had may have been small, but they were attentive. At Modi’s packed rally, barely any were concentrating on what the prime minister was saying.“We can’t find work. We have nowhere to go. We have come here only on our sarpanch’s (village head) insistence” a group of labourers from Ambala district told The Wire, adding that they had come to participate in the rally only because they were being given free meals and a free ride.In Charhuni’s meeting, people freely interacted with him, while at Modi’s rally the focus of all attention was the prime minister.PM Narendra Modi addresses a rally in Kurukshetra. Photo: Harsh ChetwaniAfter having spent a major part of his speech on national security matters, Modi hurriedly listed out some of the Haryana state government’s achievements. But by that time, a significant chunk of the crowd had already left.“A common person in Haryana is worried about livelihood matters. Modi entirely omitted those issues in his speech today. The deshbhakti (patriotism) that the BJP wears on its sleeves is fake – a way to deflect attention from real issues,” Charhuni said.Also Read: In Election-Bound Haryana, BJP Finds Ready Poll Plank in Article 370 Decision“The constant focus on security matters and nationalism has completely overshadowed livelihood issues in the current state of politics. Is this any good?” he asked.“Now, no politician comes to ask a common person whether he is doing well or not. BJP has completely killed grassroots democracy in Haryana,” he said, as he left Sanwla for another village to address another meeting. It was 10 pm then.