LS polls: In Amethi, BJP relies on welfare schemes; Congress eyes local connect
Union minister Smriti Irani.
“How many of you have got free ration given by Prime Minister Modi ji?” Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party’s Amethi candidate Smriti Irani asks a small crowd in Khairahni Pahargarh village. Several women raise their hands. Irani repeats the question for Covid vaccines. More hands are raised this time.
“Price of each vaccine is ₹600. For a family of four people, could you spend ₹4,800 on vaccines? If PM Modi had not given free vaccines, would poor people have survived?” Irani asks the crowd who listens to her with rapt attention.
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The welfare pitch, however, comes with frequent barbs for “laapata saansad (missing MP)”, an oblique reference to Rahul Gandhi, who is the candidate for the Congress from Raebareli this time.
After Irani’s biggest electoral achievement—defeating Gandhi, who was then the Congress president, from the Gandhi family’s bastion of Amethi in 2019–now comes an easier but less spectacular electoral proposition: she is pitted against the family’s local manager, Kishori Lal Sharma.
There might be far fewer posters and banners of Sharma on the walls, but his strength comes from working in this seat since the 1980s. “All Congress leaders know Sharma. He is one of us,” said party worker Rajesh Tiwari outside the Congress office on Amethi-Durgapur Road.
Opinion is divided about Sharma at a sugarcane juice shop. “Sharma is a good candidate as he knows the place like the palm of his hand,” said Vaibhav Gupta, a local merchant. But another area resident, Randhir Singh, a farmer, argued, “Priyanka (Gandhi Vadra) didi is not fighting the election. Sharma might be popular among the Congress leaders, but no one knows him in the villages.”
With less than a fortnight left for the polling on May 20, Sharma’s campaign received a boost on Monday when Gandhi Vadra arrived in Uttar Pradesh to campaign for the party in Amethi and Raebareli. “She will camp in that area till May 18,” a Congress leader said, declining to be named. On the day of the nomination, Gandhi Vadra held a roadshow with Sharma, lending support to the old family loyalist.
Gandhi Vadra, who hit the campaign trail in Amethi and Rae Bareli, announced, “Till May 18, 5 pm, when the EC (election commission) will ask me to leave, I am not going anywhere. We will tour the constituencies throughout the day. In the evening, I will hold meetings with party workers to discuss their issues.”
In his campaign, Sharma harps on his long association with Amethi. “I am here for 40 years. It is 40 vs 10 (years of Smriti Irani in Amethi),” Sharma told ANI news agency, “Those who have joined politics recently don’t know that I came here in 1983 through the Indian Youth Congress.”
But for Irani and local BJP workers in Amethi, the feverish poll campaign is still centred around an Irani vs Gandhi narrative. She makes it a point to repeat how Rahul Gandhi has “run away” to Raebareli after the 2019 defeat and underlines how the Congress refused to attend the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
“How many of you got the prasad of Ram Lala? Did any of you refuse to take the prasad? When the Congress, however, was invited for the consecration of Ram mandir, they refused to attend. Jo sacche man se Ram ka nehi, humare kisi kaam ka nehi (whoever is not with Ram, is not with us),” said Irani.
At Miyapur, the women and child development minister, who underlines she has a house in Amethi, also narrates the work undertaken during her tenure. “Hundreds of colonies have been constructed, 1.14 lakh awas (houses under PMAY) and 4 lakh toilets have been constructed in this constituency, 3.5 lakh houses have water supply. 1.5 lakh families got power and 2 lakh women got gas connection,” she pointed out.
Sharma’s campaign, two Congress strategists said, is more localized and based on his personal equation with party workers. “We have not given a walkover to Irani in Amethi,” a strategist said, countering an oft-heard sentiment among analysts and commentators. “Sharma will give Irani a run for her money.”
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