But for an occasional campaign van of Independent candidate R.K. Mahajan passing by, one would never guess that the capital of Madhya Pradesh votes in less than a week.

The common refrain, when asked about the visible absence of electioneering, is “Jeetna toh BJP ko hee hai, The BJP is destined to win.”

Only politically inquisitive voters know the names of one or two candidates in the
fray, although Alok Sharma (BJP) is a former mayor. You can’t find their posters anywhere. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s face can be seen on hoardings, with
miniatures of his party president J.P. Nadda, Madhya Pradesh president V.D. Sharma and chief minister Mohan Yadav sharing space on some of them.

Grain sellers Sanjay Dhani and (right) Mukesh Ahirwar at Govindpura haat. No one's made- them any promises but Dhani will vote for BJP and Ahirwar for Congress.

Voters feel ignored here — a seat once known for its high-profile contests, and represented in the past by former President Shankar Dayal Sharma besides former chief ministers Kailash Joshi and Uma Bharti.

Anil Maladhare makes stickers and signages at his kiosk in the Barah Daftar neighbourhood. Business, he claims, has been “90 per cent down” after he was relocated here in 2021 from the once bustling commercial hub of Jawahar Chowk to make way for a wide road under the Smart City project.

“If anyone asks for my vote, I will demand free compensatory allocation of commercial space in a planned shopping complex under the Smart City. Currently, it costs ₹7.5 lakh to apply for a shop there. Where is the money?” he asks The Telegraph.

Maladhare was once a supporter of former Congress minister Prakash “PC” Sharma — who built his reputation fighting for small businesses in the city.

“Before the eviction, PCji, who was our MLA, said he would lie down in front of the bulldozers if they ever dared to arrive. When we were evicted, we were told he was visiting Sri Lanka.

“There are six votes in my family and we are voting NOTA because both Congress and the BJP just mouth platitudes. This time no candidate has even come to ask for our votes. None of them even placed orders for stickers or signages for campaigns.”

At the Congress campaign office, party functionaries say the campaign is local. “We are focussing on colonies that have been declared encroachments and the long pending masterplan for the city. Bhopal has completely been neglected by successive BJP regimes and MPs,” Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee’s RTI cell president, Puneet Tandon, tells this reporter.

Tandon and his colleagues have stock excuses for the lack of electioneering — paucity of funds, door-to-door campaigning over large public events, and clinging to hope that it will pick up before the campaign ends on Sunday.

Prime Minister Modi is the centre of the narrative — both in talking points and visibility.

Best friends and grain-sellers Sanjay Dhani and Mukesh Ahirwar wear their political affiliations on their chests. Dhani sports a BJP campaign T-shirt at the bi-weekly Govindpura haat, and Ahirwar is from a hardcore Congress family. Neither has met campaigners of any party this time.

“I will vote in the PM’s name, for the progress the country has made,” says Dhani as Ahirwar chimes in, “I will vote for the Congress because the Congress is our party. I don’t need a reason.”

The party has not given him any either.

“We have been selling at these haats for decades, out in the open, even in the rain. We pay ₹20 a day for selling here. There is no facility given for that money, not even a proper toilet. We vote with a sense of duty, not because any politician has ever fulfilled any promise to us. This time they’re not even making promises,” says Dhani.

Identity politics fills the vacuum of economic issues in conversations around the polls. The Congress candidate is from the Kayastha caste, which is estimated at around a tenth of the electorate. Together with Muslims, who are a quarter of the population, they could be a formidable vote bank.

Celebrated author and Bhopali raconteur Rajesh Joshi explains: “I don’t think any of the main Kayastha candidates have lost an election here to a non-Kayastha. Muslims aren’t expected to vote for the BJP. But because the Congress is not seen to be campaigning, it’s hard to say if this will work for the party.

“Even Prime Minister Modi’s road show here was just a kilometre long... Bhopal is not a priority for parties.

“Never before has an election been fought almost entirely on non-economic issues… The Congress has to take its promises of ‘nyay’ to the public, and not just intellectuals. They need to spell out what they will deliver.”

• Bhopal votes on May 7