Congress ke durg mein khilta kamal (Lotus is blooming in the fort of Congress) is how Kubool Ahmad, a Hindi print journalist travelling in Rae Bareli and Amethi, sums up the poll battle in the Gandhi family strongholds. “Barring three seats, Congress seems to be struggling hard on all seats. BJP leads on five and BSP is strong on two seats,” said Ahmad.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi are Lok Sabha MPs from Rae Bareli and Amethi, respectively. However, despite Sonia Gandhi issuing an appeal to voters on election eve and Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Vadra campaigning in the area, voters don’t seem to be enchanted with the Gandhis.
Poor coordination with alliance partner Samajwadi Party, an almost inert local leadership and neglecting the Backward Classes and minority community in candidate selection, according to Ahmad, will cost the Congress dear. “Almost 70-75% electorate in these two districts is OBCs and Muslims. The Congress has ignored both of these sections. The BJP and BSP have adjusted them well—Rajputs, Yadavs, OBCs, Dalits, Muslims —and thus they will likely to reap ballot benefits,” said Ahmad.
A local BJP worker said that the BJP’s district president is a Yadav and that the party has given equal attention to all sections compared to the Congress “which seemed to have piggybacked only on Rajputs and Brahmins”.
Both the MLCs of Congress from Rae Bareli and Amethi are Rajputs.
Six Assembly segments of Rae Bareli saw 61.1% polling on Thursday. And according to the perception of some people in the district interviewed by this correspondent, the Congress seemed to have an edge on two seats, Rae Bareli Sadar and Unchahar. “But even here, they are in a fight with the BSP and BJP,” said another journalist on the ground on polling day.
Unchahar has witnessed one of the most interesting contests of perhaps the whole state. Congress’ candidate Ajay Pal Singh, former MLA, and Samajwadi Party’s Manoj Pandey, a famous Cabinet minister of the Akhilesh Yadav government, were said to be in a “friendly fight” against BJP’s Utkrisht Maurya, son of Swami Prasad Maurya, a BSP heavyweight who changed his loyalty a few months before the elections. According to locals, BSP candidate Vivek Singh, too, was a strong candidate.
“This constituency is a combination of Dalits, Brahmins, Vaishyas, Muslims and OBCs. They all are in sufficient numbers. Polling perceptions suggest that the Congress candidate might have obtained the maximum Muslim votes. Brahmins and other upper castes have remained divided among the Congress and BJP. OBCs have remained split among all fours,” said A.K. Singh, a local activist. But Ved Prakash Yadav, a school teacher, said that non-Yadav OBCs preferred BJP and a small number of Yadavs, too, voted for the saffron party, suggesting chances of the BJP’s Utkrisht Maurya over others. But Javed Ahmed, a poll agent for an independent candidate, said that Ajay Pal Singh was ahead of others as locals were angry with minister Pandey and Maurya, who only a few months ago was asking for votes in the name of Mayawati and was acutely critical of the Central BJP government.
In Rae Bareli Sadar seat, Aditi Singh, daughter of area strongman and five-time MLA Akhilesh Singh, is said to be the favourite. After Thursday’s polling, locals weighed Aditi Singh a notch above her rival, BSP’s Shahbaz Khan, but locals also said that Aditi’s victory depended on minority votes. “There are around 1.15 lakh Muslims on the Sadar seat and a majority still seemed to have voted for Khan,” said some of Muslim voters.
On other seats in the district, the BSP and Congress were said to be fighting in Saraini seat; BJP and BSP were in fight in Harchandpur; BJP, BSP and RLD were locked in a triangular battle in Bachrawan; BJP and BSP were said to be fighting for the Salon seat.
In nearby Amethi district, which will go to the polls on Monday, Congress is said to be leading only in Jagdishpur, and trailing on all the other three seats.
In Amethi City seat, BJP has fielded Rani Garima Singh, the estranged first wife of Raja Sanjay Singh, Congress Rajya Sabha MP. Singh’s second wife, Amita Singh, is a Congress candidate. The two ladies are fighting it out against SP’s Gayatri Prajapati, a controversial minister of the Akhilesh Yadav Cabinet.
Locals say that Garima Singh, who has returned to the palace after 18 years, is getting popular among locals, especially among women. “She was always talked about here. People know her as the original Rani of Amethi. She is humble and she knows us. She even speaks our language. She will understand our problem,” said Sarita, a villager.
Garima Singh’s poll meetings are attracting women in large numbers.
But Kubool Ahmad said that while Amita, a former two-time MLA, seems to have lost her charm in the area, Garima will have to fight it out with Prajapati, who has been very popular among the OBCs. “It was Prajapati who reportedly gathered OBC votes for Rahul Gandhi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when he was in trouble against Smiriti Irani. Despite a rape case against him, he will be a force to reckon with,” said Ahmad.
In other constituencies of the district, BJP is said to be fighting against BSP candidates in Tilohi and Gauriganj.
While a senior Congress leader from Delhi, on the condition of anonymity, admitted the diminishing impact of the Gandhis in Rae Bareli and Amethi, V.S. Shukla, district Congress president in Rae Bareli, said that the Gandhis still draw respect and crowds. But he also admitted that the organisation “ignored OBCs and Muslims and preferred savarnas (upper castes) in ticket distribution and that will have some effect on poll results.”