In Amethi and Raebareli Congress sends out the wrong message

In politics, it is the ability to lead from the front, the desire and willingness to fight against tough odds, and a never-say-die spirit that is most admired. People seldom vote for super expressways and bullet trains; they vote for those who give them hope, those who instil pride in them.

By choosing to contest only one of the two seats in Uttar Pradesh that are regarded as their political bastion, the Gandhis are laying themselves open to the charge that they don’t have the stomach for a full-fledged fight.

Already, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at a rally in West Bengal, has said: "I had already said … that their (Congress) biggest leader will not dare to fight elections and she will run away. She ran away to Rajasthan and came to the Rajya Sabha... I had already said that the Shehzada was going to lose in Wayanad. I had said that as soon as the polling was completed in Wayanad, he would start looking for another seat... He is so scared of Amethi that he is running towards Raebareli. They ask everyone 'Daro Mat'. Today, I also ask them, 'Daro Mat, Bhago Mat'..."

Rahul Gandhi is going to contest from Raebareli (the seat held since 2004 by his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi), instead of from Amethi, where he was elected in 2004, 2009, and 2014 (losing in 2019 by 55,000 votes to Union minister Smriti Irani). In the past, the seat has been held by Rahul Gandhi’s grandparents — if grandfather Feroze Gandhi won Raebareli in India’s first general elections, grandmother Indira Gandhi won it in 1967, 1971, and 1980.

Instead of his sister Priyanka Gandhi contesting from the Amethi seat, the Congress has nominated Kishori Lal Sharma, an influential representative of the Nehru-Gandhi family in Amethi and Raebareli for over two decades.

He ‘took care’ of both constituencies till 2012, and thereafter only of Raebareli. On the day of the nomination, Priyanka Gandhi told the gathered crowd that she would camp in the constituency from May 6 to polling day to ensure Sharma’s victory. She said that Sharma was an embodiment of “sachchai aur sewa” (truth and service) — a message both to the voters and party colleagues that the Gandhis rewarded service.

For the Congress’ first family — beleaguered and notwithstanding the fact that it is fighting with its back to the wall in these elections — not to contest both Raebareli and Amethi, the family pocket borough — could prove detrimental to their larger project of making a comeback. It has sent out a message that a political party during a war — for that is what it is — simply should not be sending out. It has also given the BJP — as Modi’s remarks have shown — the opportunity to say that the Gandhis are running scared.

During a recent trip to Uttar Pradesh, conversations with locals in Amethi and Raebareli revealed that they were looking forward to the brother and sister duo contesting the two seats; as for Congress workers, they were raring for a battle. The Uttar Pradesh state unit had also sent in a request to the Congress’ central office that Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi should contest from the two seats.

Rahul Gandhi may well give a tough fight in Raebareli to the BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh, a local heavyweight, and three-time MLC — the five assembly segments there are currently held by the Congress’ ally in the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, the Samajwadi Party. But in Amethi, where the BJP was anticipating a tough fight, the entry of Kishori Lal Sharma will make its task that much easier.

The Congress’ argument that Priyanka Gandhi was needed to campaign in other parts of India does not wash: In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress had two winnable seats, Amethi and Raebareli. If the siblings had both contested, it would have sent a positive message across the state — that the Gandhis meant business. The BJP may still be in the number one position in the state, but voters across Uttar Pradesh are exhausted, and would have liked to see a real alternative; they needed to see the signs of a revival of the Congress.

Simultaneously, as I travelled through the state, I noticed two things. One, Rahul Gandhi’s recent Nyay yatra had made some impact, and questions about him, by and large, received a sympathetic, if not enthusiastic, response. Two, many BJP supporters — including journalists — told this author that it would be a mistake for the Gandhis to contest the two seats. Their explanation for this piece of advice was that the BJP’s central leadership had run out of ideas, and if the brother and sister were both in the electoral fray in Uttar Pradesh, Modi, Union minister Amit Shah and other BJP leaders would be able to bring the dynasty issue once again into focus. The way the story was repeated suggested that it was part of the BJP’s propaganda line.

The fact is, whatever the Gandhis do, the BJP leadership will use them for target practice, as we have seen over the years. The Congress and the Gandhis need to look to the people for inspiration, not to the BJP when they devise their political strategy.

(Smita Gupta is a Delhi-based journalist. X: @g_smita.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.