'DNA' special: Rahul Gandhi intense & Akhilesh Yadav cool

Rahul Gandhi exudes remarkable sincerity as he addresses large audiences across Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav, on the other hand, is humble, affable, greets his party seniors with folded hands and recollects their names with astounding fluency. Rahul insists that Uttar Pradesh (UP) will always be in his mind and he will continue to spend nights at hovels inhabited by the Dalits. Akhilesh doesn’t speak from a distant rostrum, doesn’t need to be restricted by a security regime and scurries down the steps to mingle with a doting audience.

But both have been given a free rein by their respective parents. Hopping from one meeting venue to another in a chopper, Rahul has been entrusted with political authority by his mother Sonia Gandhi. Akhilesh has also been given almost unfettered control of the Samajwadi Party by his ageing father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Akhilesh has adopted a balanced approach, shedding his party’s earlier inhibitions about the English language and computers.

Without doubt, these are the two most visible faces in this great democratic festival that the UP elections always tend to be. With his rolled up sleeves and a trimmed beard, Rahul continues to win adulation as the Prince Charming. And hoping to extract maximum advantage from the anti-incumbency trend which CM Mayawati faces, Akhilesh has a noticeable spring in his step. Wrapped in a security blanket, Rahul mesmerises onlookers from beyond the barricades while Akhilesh projects the image of the neighbourhood boy without any pretence. 

Near the Mawaiya crossing in Lucknow Cantonment, there’s a mild February sun which welcomes a hastily put together thousand-strong audience. Akhilesh alights from the car and is greeted with rose and marigold garlands. He doesn’t delay his speech and straightaway lampoons the BSP for being a government cast in stone, whose elephants have been feeding on Central funds (this aspersion, of course, is borrowed from the specially coined Congress phrases to target Mayawati). It was Rahul who first told an election audience that Mayawati’s elephants have fattened themselves on money pouring in from Delhi.

Akhilesh knows how to use the microphone, seldom raising his voice. All his charges against the BSP and Congress are levelled as though he was serving up juicy gossip. He complains that Mayawati has no sense of history. She will soon be building her statues on Lucknow’s heritage sites, her elephants trampling upon Bada Imambara or Bhul Bhulaiya. He reminds the voter that in the end, the bicycle (Samajwadi Party symbol) will overtake the elephant. He talks to the Muslim voter directly, promising a lucrative basket of freebies.

A day later, two hundred kilometres away in rural Kanpur-Dehat, a chopper descends on a hurriedly flattened strip of land in the afternoon. A nimble-footed Rahul steps out as the dust settles. 
And the first slogan Rahul raises is “Vikas Chaahiye, Pragati Chahiye” (We want development and progress). He travels back to 2004 to remind the audience of the NDA’s “fake” India Shining campaign. He insists that the Congress is the only aam aadmi party. And that all the other parties were duping the electorate with poll promises which were never kept. Only the Congress was capable of conceiving right to food or MNREGA.

It’s ridiculous that in the past 22 years, not a single major industrial unit has come up in Uttar Pradesh. Has Mayawati or Mulayam ever tried to reach out to the poor? Has Mulayam ever spoken of a quota for Muslims when he was in power? Rahul’s rhetoric is powerful and it impresses the audience comprising several thousands.

The two leaders are both young and successors to important political dynasties. Rahul, of course, projects a national persona while Akhilesh cultivates a more rooted image. Akhilesh also has the advantage of relying on a tested party structure which plays a significant role in garnering votes. There is every indication that Akhilesh’s Samajwadi  Party and Rahul’s Congress will be the major gainers in this election.