A narrow metalled road slices Burari in vertical halves. All of two lanes wide, Sant Nagar Marg is a battleground, where cars, motorbikes, trucks, shops, and street vendors joust for every inch of space. Leaking sewage pipes and “work in progress” boards punctuate the potholed nightmare. Burari, on Delhi’s northern fringe, has mushroomed around this avenue over the past 25 years – quickly, dramatically and haphazardly. Multi-storeyed malls sit beside police stations, which sit beside residential towers, which sit beside godowns.
“This road means a lot to us. When we moved here, it was just a single-lane muddy road,” said Arvind Choudhary. The 52-year-old shifted to Delhi from a tiny village in Supaul district of Bihar as a teenager in the early 1980s in search of work. He found a job as a labourer in Azadpur Mandi, about 10km from Burari.
Delhi’s largest wholesale vegetable market, Azadpur Mandi, was the presumptive gateway to the Capital and prosperity for millions such as Choudhary who poured into the city from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar between the 1980s and early 2000s.
But with opportunities came discrimination.
“We were abused and a laughing stock for a very long time. I first worked at the market as a daily wage labourer, but my employer would routinely use slurs at me for being a Bihari,” said Choudhary.
Bound by migration, marginally homogenous cultural practices and shared experiences of discrimination, people such as Choudhary coalesced into a larger social group – Purvanchalis. They found work, mostly menial, in Azadpur, Jahangirpuri, Bhalswa and Swaroop Nagar, neighbouring colonies on Delhi’s northern edge that were several kilometres away from the city’s traditional commercial centres further south.
Work was easier to come by than housing. “We were paid little and nobody wanted to rent us their homes,” said Sanjay Rai, 38.
Burari, then a marshy village on the western bank of the Yamuna, was an obvious answer. The area was largely vacant, land was cheap, and their workplaces would be a cycle ride away. “Everything else was beyond our budget. In the late 1990s or even the early 2000s, land in Burari cost just ₹200 a gaj (roughly 0.8 square yard),” added Rai. Now, an equivalent plot goes for around ₹1 lakh.
In the decades since, Burari has transformed, emerging as one of Delhi’s burgeoning centres of political, if not economic, power. Tucked away beyond the notional areas of influence and better known for a gruesome 2018 crime, Burari has wielded a quiet influence on Delhi, growing in lockstep with its primary residents, Purvanchalis, and underlining the shifting tides of the city’s politics.
In Burari’s story is the story of the Purvanchalis’ evolution from “outsiders” to “leaders” in large parts of Delhi.
Unofficial estimates put this number at more than a third of Delhi’s 15.5 million voters. The number of assembly constituencies where they are in a majority is estimated in the double digits.
Statistically speaking, it is difficult to arrive at an accurate number for either. The official source of migration statistics in India is the decadal census. The latest available census data is from 2011 as the 2021 exercise has been postponed indefinitely. Data from the last three censuses shows that the share of migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (this includes Uttarakhand and Jharkhand for the sake of consistency with the 1991 census) has increased from a fifth to a fourth in Delhi’s population (See Chart 1). To be sure, not all migrants from Uttar Pradesh qualify as Purvanchalis, but the census does not give a district-wise mapping of migrant exporting and importing centres.
However, there are other government documents which show that the Purvanchali migration to Delhi is one of the biggest migration channels in the country and much higher than what census estimates tell us.
The 2016-17 Economic Survey – the flagship publication of the finance ministry – used data on railway passengers to estimate the flow of migrants. Its summary finding was unequivocal.
“Analysing the changes in same-age cohorts using Census data yields an annual inter-state migration of about 5-6.5 million between 2001 and 2011. Railway passenger data analysis suggests an annual inter-state migration flow of close to 9 million since 2011”, the survey said. Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and Bihar to Delhi were the top two migrant export-import routes by states, according to the data analysed in the survey. Of the top 30 top routes between migrant exporting and importing districts in the country, nine were from Purvanchal to Delhi. (See Map)
That growth is mirrored in their political representation in Delhi.
HT built a caste-religion and region database of all 490 MLAs Delhi has had since 1993. In the database, an MLA is counted as Purvanchali if they have ancestral roots in the region, even if they were born in Delhi. The number of Purvanchali MLAs in Delhi has increased from just two in the 1993 and 1998 elections to nine each in 2015 and 2020. Barring the election of Kirti Azad – he was a celebrity in his own right as a part of the cricket team that won the 1983 World Cup – in 1993 from the Gole Market constituency, large parts of which are now part of the New Delhi constituency after the 2008 delimitation, almost all Purvanchali MLA victories came in assembly constituencies that have perhaps seen a high influx of migrants.
The tipping point was likely 2013, when the AAP contested its first elections in Delhi; five out of its 28 MLAs were Purvanchalis. This number increased to nine in 2015 and 10 in 2020, once again mostly in constituencies on the fringes of the metropolis (See Chart 2).
What are the dynamics of the rise of the Purvanchali voter and leader in Delhi? Coming back to Burari is a good way to answer this question.
Burari, the microcosm of the Purvanchali voter and leader’s rise
As their population increased thanks to a constant flow of migrants, Purvanchalis first quietly mobilised on cultural lines to survive the abrasions of the big city.
But their larger political ambitions were muted for years before the AAP seems to have provided the necessary catalyst to kickstart the process.
Contesting its first elections in 2013, the party tapped a nascent pulse, when it nominated from Burari Sanjeev Jha, a then 34-year-old local activist who moved to Delhi from Madhubani district in Bihar.
The fledgling party’s choice at the time, in many ways, redefined Delhi’s electoral politics. In a largely bipolar polity, the AAP was desperately looking for a low-hanging fruit that would become its core political block. It zeroed in on the Purvanchali leader, a choice that continues to reap dividends even now.
“Our mindset changed after 2013,” said Chetan Saini (36), a resident of Kadipur in Burari who owns a grocery store.
“Before that, we had no political agency. Jha’s entry changed it for us – not because he is with the AAP or another party, but because we Purvanchalis finally had an outlet for our grievances.”
The AAP MLA is an arts graduate from a college in Bihar. For the upcoming elections, he has declared assets worth ₹11,07,058 (11 lakh) of which ₹7,26,000 is just the value of inherited agricultural land in Bihar. His asset value has grown by less than ₹1 lakh since the 2020 polls, when his declared assets were worth ₹10.4 lakh, making him the second poorest MLA. This is why his voters relate to him.
Other parties are trying to catch up. The BJP this year has fielded four Purvanchali candidates and has given a seat each to two of the party’s key allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) – the Janata Dal United (JDU), which is contesting the Burari seat and the Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas), which is contesting from Deoli. This, however, is well behind the AAP, which has fielded 12. The Congress too has named four Purvanchalis.
And the Purvanchali voter is enjoying the attention. “None of the political parties were fond of us back then. But now, they have no option other than to seek our blessings,” said Choudhary, who now owns two three-storey houses and two plots in the Kirari area.
What Choudhary is highlighting is a rise in the electoral strength of the Purvanchali voter. Burari has seen the highest growth in the number of electors between 2008 and 2025 – by 121%, much faster than in Delhi in the same time (45%).
Migrant voters have had a big role in pushing these numbers.
Backing a Purvanchali candidate has also helped the AAP cement its status as the pre-eminent party in Burari. Sanjeev Jha’s vote share and victory margin, 62.81% and 39.67% of the total votes polled respectively in 2020, were among the highest across Delhi’s 70 constituencies.
Before Purvanchalis streamed in, Burari was dominated by the Jat and Gujjar communities. But the sudden influx of migrants has eroded their power, bit by bit.
In the 2008 elections, the winning and runner-up candidates were both from the Tyagi community, even as the polity itself was fragmented.
The winning candidate had a vote share of just 30.1% and almost 45% of the vote was scattered across candidates who were ranked third or below.
Jha and the AAP’s entry into the fray changed the equation from 2015. AAP had a 63% vote share in 2020. JD(U) polled 23% of the vote and everybody else apart from the third candidate did not even cross the 1% mark. Even the JD(U) candidate was a Purvanchali.
Interestingly, Burari’s story is now being repeated in others. Assembly segments in Delhi’s periphery have seen a large consolidation of votes, primarily behind the AAP and with help from the Purvanchali vote bank, from 2015, as was shown in these pages on January 23.
With changing political calculus, social equations have also changed in Burari.
“When we first started living here, the Tyagis and Gujjars used to lay their cots out on the street and smoke hookahs. If we wanted to pass, we would have to wait or take another route,” said Vinay Jha (39), a professor at Delhi University who moved here from Bihar in 1998 to study.
“A few years later, they would move their cots and let us pass. Eventually, the cots moved off the streets entirely,” added Vinay, celebrating the new political muscle of the Purvanchali migrants.
Tyagis and Gujjars, the original inhabitants of what was once a distant village beyond Delhi’s urban veneer, perceive the shift differently.
Kuldeep Chaudhary, an advocate who runs his practice from a small two-storey building on Burari’s eastern edge, denied any tensions owing to the influx of people from eastern Uttar Pradesh or Bihar.
“Purvanchalis are not the first migrants to this part of the city, nor will they be the last,” he said, taking a prolonged puff from the dying stub of a beedi.
“People from Haryana and Rajasthan flocked here before Purvanchalis. Gujjars have never resisted any other groups,” he added. “Moreover, we’ve all reached a consensus,” he said, hinting at a unique socio-economic compromise that maintains harmony at the local and political levels.
Burari constituency comprises five municipality segments – Burari, Kadipur, Mukundpur, Sant Nagar, and Jharoda. Of these, the AAP controls three (Kadipur, Sant Nagar and Jharoda), and the BJP two (Burari and Mukundpur). However, all five corporators are either Tyagis or Gujjars. None is a Purvanchali.
“There’s a tacit give-and-take between the Purvanchalis and the others. Purvanchalis will vote for Tyagi and Gujjar candidates in the civic elections, while the Tyagis and Gujjars will vote for Purvanchalis in the assembly elections,” said Vinay Jha.
“This political alliance also keeps power equation balanced,” he said.
But most of the social, cultural and political boundaries collapse for the Purvanchali voter in the face of one name – Manoj Tiwari, the Bhojpuri pop superstar and three-time BJP MP from North East Delhi, of which Burari is a part.
“Manoj Tiwari is God. He’s beyond electoral politics,” said Asha Mishra (51), who moved to Delhi from Prayagraj, then Allahabad, in the 1980s.
She acknowledges the difference the AAP has made in Burari and its surrounding regions over the past 12 years, but the veneration around Tiwari sets these equations aside. “Sanjeev Jha in the Vidhan Sabha and Manoj Tiwari in Parliament – that’s all we want,” Mishra said.
Residents are quick to point out that Tiwari has been an infrequent visitor to Burari, but said they hold no grudges.
Devinder Bhagat (55), a resident of DCM Colony in Burari, said Tiwari couldn’t be expected to get involved in the minutiae of everyday politics.
“We can’t expect him to do everything for us, can we? He’s a celebrity, he has his own commitments. We will vote for him whether he visits us or not.”
The BJP’s key challenge will be translating this support for Tiwari at the parliamentary level in the Delhi assembly.
Gopal Jha, the BJP candidate from Burari in 2015, insists the tide has turned for his party. “All the AAP legislators, including the Purvanchalis, couldn’t do anything for their areas. People are irritated with their arrogance and proximity with the corrupt people of the areas. The BJP will turn the table this time,” he said.