The battle for the heart of UP has been joined between two women, one of them fighting to catapult the BSP to Delhi, the other struggling for the Congress.
The battle for the heart of UP has been joined between two women, one of them fighting to catapult the BSP to Delhi, the other struggling to give the Congress a fighting chance. The two are Mayawati and Sonia Gandhi.
Within a 100 km of each other on Sunday, both women braved the scorching heat in Sultanpur and Faizabad respectively, descending upon the masses in their private helicopters, just like two goddesses out to reclaim their own.
Both seemed to push the Samajwadi Party into the background, condemned by Muslims for the party’s alliance with Kalyan Singh, a prime accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
Even if Amethi and Rae Bareli, long considered to be the pocket-boroughs of the Gandhi family, are surely going to remain loyal to both Rahul Gandhi and Sonia, the so-called revival of the Congress in these parts is founded on the people’s anger against Mayawati.
“Mayawati toh Lucknow mein pathar pees rahi hai, logon ke liye kuchh nahin kiya (Mayawati is breaking stones in Lucknow, she hasn’t done anything for the people),” says Mohammed Jahangir, who man’s an STD booth on the highway in Sultanpur, the constituency which neighbours Amethi. Jehangir was referring to the tonnes of sandstone and marble which she has imported to build statues of BSP leaders, including herself, in Lucknow.
Jahangir pointed out that Sanjay Singh, the Congress candidate from Sultanpur, is doing well to position himself as someone who will be able to deliver “development”.
“The world knows about Amethi and Rae Bareli, but no one knows anything about Sultanpur, although Rajiv Gandhi brought several factories here in the 80s,” admits Jahangir ruefully, adding, “Mohammed Tahir Khan, the sitting BSP member of parliament, hasn’t shown his face since he was elected from Sultanpur.”
Stories about the BSP’s corruption are rampant in this belt, but on Sunday afternoon as Mayawati’s helicopter landed on Sultanpur’s rough-and-ready airstrip, she gave an enormous fillip to Tahir Khan’s candidature.
“Do not vote for the chacha-bhatija parties of the Congress,” said Mayawati, referring to the SP and the BJP in her speech, as the sizeable crowd clapped. Nothing in Mayawati’s speech was extraordinary, but the Dalit crowd listened to her, spell-bound. It didn’t really matter what she was saying on Sunday.
Similarly, when Sonia Gandhi descended from her own helicopter in Faizabad to support its candidate Nirmal Khatri, the area had not seen such a large crowd in recent weeks.
The Congress hasn’t won Faizabad since 1984, when the party swept the elections in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination to reach a whopping 402 seats in the Lok Sabha.
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