Amit Shah hits the streets, Rahul and Akhilesh follow suit as campaigning for Phase-IV ends
Curtains on the high-decibel campaign in the fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections came down in style on Tuesday. Arch rivals BJP, led by party president Amit Shah, and the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress coalition, led by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, held rallies simultaneously and in the same city: Allahabad.
The city reverberated throughout the day with political sloganeering as both sides took out their grand roadshows. While supporters on cycles and the Bollywood-inspired jingle ‘UP ko saath pasand hai’ kept the mood of the SP-Congress camp upbeat, slogans of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ and ‘Har har Modi’ and the jingle ‘Hum Bhajpaa laayenge, UP me kamal khilayenge’ kept the BJP’s rally cheerful.
The scale of the roadshows was such that most of the city came to a standstill due to massive traffic jams. The District Magistrate had anticipated this and had ordered schools to remain shut keeping the roadshows in mind.
Thousands of party supporters, including women and children, danced in both the roadshows, as if they were celebrating a festival. Overzealous party workers in both roadshows seemed desperate to catch a glimpse of their respective leaders. Most of the people in the crowd wanted to garland their party leaders or shake hands with them. Of course, only a few succeeded. There were flowers, music, heavy sloganeering, people draped in party flags, women draped in sarees with party symbols on them, and, of course, the top-most politicians — in short, it had everything that empitomises colourful Indian politics.
Waving their hands on top of their respective special vehicles bedecked with flowers, the politicians did manage to create a strong impression on their audience, the latter responding to these greetings with even more
enthusiasm.
The roadshows, which kept the city, especially its police, on its toes commenced barely 600 metres away from each other. Political observers say that both SP-Congress and BJP choosing the same place for their roadshows was not a mere coincidence, but a well-thought out plan. Shah knows the working style of Prashant Kishore, who is now the chief strategist for the Congress and had successfully managed Nitish Kumar’s Bihar campaign, they said. Thus, the BJP president deliberately decided to hold a roadshow at the same place in an attempt to counter the effect of the Akhilesh-Rahul combine.
Both roadshows had many die-hard fans. Ajit Kumar Yadav, a 19-year-old student who came all the way from Jaunpur to see his “icon” Akhilesh, said, “I am a great fan of Akhilesh bhaiyya and have high hopes from him. There are problems in UP, but I believe he can solve them if given another chance.”
On the other hand, 27-year-old Rajkali, who came with her infant daughter to the BJP roadshow, said, “Some people warned me not to come here because of my little daughter, but I couldn’t control myself. Modiji is my hero and I wanted to support him in whatever way I can.”
The ending of the SP-Congress roadshow was far from pleasant, however. A stage at Gol Park in Allahabad, from where Rahul and Akhilesh were supposed to address a rally, collapsed after their roadshow around 6 pm, leaving many people injured.
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