2 ‘ranis’, a rape accused hot up Amethi drama

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Amethi, February 23

Two “ranis” (queens) of a “maharaja” (king) pitted against a rape-accused sitting legislator, Samajwadi Party’s Gayatri Prasad Prajapati—voters of Amethi Assembly segment are witnessing political drama as never seen before.

The divorced “rani”, Garima Singh (BJP), has been appealing to the “praja” (voters) for “nyay” (justice) in lieu of the “wrongs” done by the “maharaj”, Sanjay Singh. His present wife Amita Singh is the Congress nominee. The bitterness is such that despite a coalition, the Congress and the SP brass failed to convince either of the candidates to give up their fight.

Needless to say that Sanjay’s entire energy is devoted to ensure that Amita, who represents the party that sent him to the Rajya Sabha, wins Amethi.

In Garima, the BJP seems to have managed quite a “trump card”, or so believes its local cadres Vishuv Mishra, Abhishek Mishra and Gyanendra Bhargava: “A strong man like Sanjay Singh has been contained in Amethi, otherwise he could have been campaigning for the Congress across the region.”

Apart from devising booth-management techniques to counter Prajapati, Sanjay has another task at hand: blunting the sentimental support for his former wife.

As a teary-eyed Garima appeals to the electorate, the emotional cord she strikes is hard to miss. In contrast, a confident Amita mostly reminds voters of alleged atrocities committed by Prajapati, an “outsider” BSP candidate and the “clueless” BJP nominee, but without naming her.

Amita says she has chosen to ignore the “frivolities” of her BJP rival. “I am not responsible for their divorce. She had many opportunities to approach the court.

“It is an embarrassing situation created by the BJP. But the people here know it all… what I have done for them... I don’t even refer to her (Garima) by name in any of my speeches,” says Amita.

For that matter, even Garima does not mention Amita. But as she campaigns with her daughters and daughter-in-law, she does manage to make people nod their heads in sympathy to allegations that Sanjay got the divorce decree by misleading the court and producing someone else as her.

Amita is a former badminton player who once faced charges for “conspiring” with Sanjay to kill her first husband and badminton champion Syed Modi. They were absolved but when BJP supporters talk of “Sita-like” Garima who does not have a single “daag” (stain) on her “anchal” (character), their reference is hard to miss.