INDIA VOTES 2024: Desire for badlav hands Congress an opportunity on ‘family’ seats

Sandeep Dikshit

Amethi/Raebareli, May 19

On the eve of voting in the twin VIP constituencies of Amethi and Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh, an undercurrent due to expectations unmet by the BJP may be tilting the scales in favour of the INDIA alliance.

The Congress office in Raebareli is alive with party workers busily discussing booth management. But this may be due to their desire to be noticed by Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi. However, the party’s main office in the adjoining constituency of Amethi has just a few workers and a couple of vehicles as soon as party candidate KL Sharma, who has replaced Rahul Gandhi, leaves in a modest two-vehicle convoy.

“Janata chunav lad rahi hai” (the people are contesting the elections) is the common refrain from the few political workers on the ground, such as Samajwadi Party’s youthful Jai Pratap Yadav from Amethi.

Expectations were high here that Priyanka and Rahul would contest both seats. Those expectations have been dashed, but Sharma remains firmly in the contest. Smriti Irani’s backers in Amethi may have unwittingly boosted Sharma’s chances by terming it as a contest between a “family servant” and a Central Minister. The Congress lacks organisation here, and the BJP easily outmatches the Congress in visible presence.

But Yadav counts Sharma as “fortunate” to have got the ticket, and this is reflected in conversations all along the route from Lucknow.

“Awadh ka mijaz alag hai. Yeh tameez aur sajhi virasat ki zameen hai. (Awadh has a different temperament This is the land of shared diversity and culture). All this doesn’t work here),” says old-time Congress activist Vishwanath Chaturvedi.

“Madam is on the verge of a loss. Here it is the panja that has the upper hand,” says Sukanto Bengali, who runs a small shop of eatables in Jagdishpur constituency and counts himself as a neutral onlooker as he is not from the region — he’s registered for voting in Kolkata’s Diamond Harbour constituency.

The chances of Congress upsetting Irani in Amethi depend on the desire for ‘badlav’ reversing her 55,000 vote margin victory in 2019, says Chaturvedi. But the party will also have make up for the loss of an estimated one lakh votes that the BSP had brought in in 2019 due to their alliance.

The Congress effort in Raebareli is more coordinated, and Rahul Gandhi had been seen as the frontrunner until a few days ago. “Ab kaante ki takkar hai,” says Raja Ram Pal, waiting for a bus to take him back to his village.