I will vote for Modi Ji but only if I get a toilet for my house.
-Didn’t you get those 12,000 Rupees? -No.
The caravan of Sadak se Sansad has reached
Gujarat’s Mehsana constituency.
A child born in the Vadnagar town of this constituency,
is the Prime Minister of the country today.
This is the place where PM Modi used to sell tea during his childhood.
The Patel agitation was born on this land
and there's speculation that Hardik Patel may contest Lok Sabha elections from Mehsana.
In the general elections of 1984, even while riding on a sympathy wave after Indira Gandhi's death
Congress lost Mehsana’s seat.
And out of the two seats that BJP won then,
one was Mehsana.
The Deputy CM of Gujarat, Nitinbhai Patel is
also an MLA from Mehsana.
A Patel majority area, Mehsana is known to be a BJP heartland.
Who do you vote for?
Modi Ji.
Why do you vote for Modi Ji?
Because he belongs to my village.
I will vote for Modi Ji but only when I get a toilet for my house.
But in the last few years,
the Patel community has challenged the BJP in Gujarat
more fiercely that the opposition party.
In Gujarat, the homeland of PM Modi and Mahatma Gandhi
we tried to understand the social atmosphere instead of the political arithmetic
But before that...the cleanliness pledge of Mahatma Gandhi, which led
to the Swachh Bharat mission launched by PM Modi,
let us look at what the government figures say.
Until October 2, 2014,
49% of village households in the country
were free from open defecation.
On October 2, 2014, PM Modi launched the Swachh Bharat mission.
And today, 99% of the country’s households
have been declared to be free from open defecation.
About 91% of village households in Gujarat
are free from open defecation.
Whereas the Mehsana district of Gujarat
is claimed to be 100% free from open defecation.
We go out to defecate, in the open.
I don’t have a toilet in my house.
We are forced to go out in the open as we don’t have a toilet in the house.
We go out in the open for defecation.
We never had a toilet.
We go out, in the open.
Where do you go outside?
We find some place nearby,
in the open.
We go near the roadside. But we face a lot of issues
when bystanders pass by.
We are scared of goons.
We don’t like going outside for defecation.
I don’t have a toilet in my house.
Then where do you go?
We go out in the open.
Where exactly?
Near the road.
When I fall sick,
that is when I face a lot of issues.
That is when I feel the need for a toilet.
This area of Vadnagar,
remains untouched by Mehsana district's claims of
being a "100%" open defecation free area.
People are taught through advertisements
about hygiene and not to defecate in the open.
But the truth of rural India is very different from official statistics.