There are no mega road shows in Rae Bareli which was never the case earlier.
Rae Bareli: It is considered India’s most high-profile parliamentary constituency after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seat of Varanasi, but the political blitz is conspicuously missing in Rae Bareli despite the high-octane election campaign sweeping the country and Uttar Pradesh in particular. There are no big rallies and mega road shows this time in Rae Bareli which was never the case earlier.
Unlike Amethi, where the Bharatiya Janata Party is stridently trying to wrest the seat from Congress president Rahul Gandhi, and Varanasi, where the BJP and its allies put up a pompous display of its might, Rae Bareli appears nowhere on BJP’s agenda.
Top BJP brass, including Prime Minister Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, have stayed away from Rae Bareli and indications of the BJP allowing Congress candidate Sonia Gandhi a cakewalk is pretty evident in the constituency. Though BJP is expecting a close fight by fielding Congress turncoat Dinesh Pratap Singh against Sonia Gandhi, the BJP campaign has so far failed to mark any impact. Rae Bareli goes to polls on 6 May.
It is, however, not alone the BJP—the star campaigners of the Congress, too, have stayed away from this seat where the Congress has won 16 and lost just three Lok Sabha polls (including by-elections) since the first general elections in independent India. While Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Vadra have been touring the country, Sonia Gandhi has also made only occasional visits to campaign in Rae Bareli. Gandhi has been elected thrice from the seat since 2004.
BJP insiders said that the party leadership was focusing more in Amethi where it has sensed a possible victory by defeating Rahul Gandhi and thus scoring a bonus over the Congress. Similarly, the party has deployed its heavyweights in Eastern Uttar Pradesh and other Poorvanchal seats where it sees better prospects.
The Congress, on the other hand, has made its obvious that retaining its stronghold would be no difficult task for the party. What bolsters its prospects is the tacit understanding between the Congress and the SP-BSP combine under which the latter did not field its candidate against Gandhi and thus scuttling a clear division of votes.
Locals in Rae Bareli, too, appeared supporting this claim notwithstanding their liking for Modi as the Prime Minister. “Modiji acche hain, par jab tak Madam (Sonia Gandhi) hain, vote unko hi jayega (PM Modi is good, but as long as madam contests, we will vote for her),” said Vinod Kumar Pandey, a local in Balapur village which has the tradition of voting en masse for the Congress. “The people of Rae Bareli owe to the Gandhi family. If the city boasts of AIIMS and the rail coach factory, it is because of her,” added Shubham, another resident who has seen his family voting for the Congress for decades.
The youngsters have a different point of view. They brought up the issues of poor infrastructure and closed factories in Rae Bareli, but also maintained that the BJP candidate would fail to get better of Gandhi. “Roads are in a bad shape; there is hardly any sign of development. Factories have shut down and we have to move out to bigger cities in search of job,” said Rajneesh Agarwal of Harchandpur, who is undergoing teacher’s training. Some others said that the BJP candidate, a local, could pose a tough fight, but that would be insufficient to break Gandhi’s winning streak.
The absence of Gandhi from the ground has dampened the spirit of the local Congress workers. Not long back, they had cheerfully invited Priyanka Vadra to contest Lok Sabha polls from Rae Bareli in place of her mother, but with not much happening, the excitement is almost gone. And what has added to their worry is the results of the 2017 UP Assembly polls where the Congress could win only two of the five Assembly seats in Rae Bareli.
Gandhi had held a road show in Rae Bareli on 23 April, and addressed party workers exhorting them to discharge their responsibilities with “full awareness”. She said the the Lok Sabha election will decide the fate of the country.
“The current election is different from other elections. It will decide the fate of the country, and it is also linked with each and every section of the society,” the Congress leader said.
Thanking the people of her constituency for standing by her in “good and bad times”, she said this time, too, they have to fight for her. “I feel proud that whether it was good times or bad, you have always supported me, gave me strength and also increased my self-confidence. Owing to this family relationship, it is difficult for me to express in words the love and dedication you have showered,” Gandhi said.