US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

'Madam attracts huge crowds wherever she goes'

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Media reports about Congress president Sonia Gandhi drawing thin attendance at public meetings have not discouraged her strident supporters.

There is no truth in the matter, they claim, and Gandhi should have no second thoughts about entering the electoral fray.

"Madam attracts huge crowds wherever she goes. She has proved it ever since she formally joined politics. It is the BJP that is spreading disinformation about thin crowds. How can reporters forget this?" said Congress general secretary Oscar Fernandes.

The soft-spoken Fernandes, a Gandhi loyalist, is a media favourite with his quick smile and disarming manner. On Friday, however, he appeared a trifle irritated at the repeated questions about his chief's 'fading popularity'.

"Why Amethi (in Uttar Pradesh, her late husband Rajiv Gandhi's constituency)? Our partymen from all over the country have urged Madam to contest from wherever she wants. They are willing to do anything to ensure her victory," he said.

Medak, Chikmagalur and Amethi are a few constituencies where Congressmen have invited Gandhi, according to Fernandes. "Her constituency will be decided by the party leadership early next month," he said.

Party spokesman Ajit Jogi said that once the decision was announced, the Congress election campaign would start with a bang. "Congressmen have already been energised with the knowledge that our president is contesting," Jogi said.

He refused comment on media reports that Gandhi's son Rahul or daughter Priyanka would also contest the Lok Sabha election. Sources said the party leadership is toying with the idea of one of the two contesting from Amethi while Gandhi herself fights the election from some other place. Their argument is that while the president's popularity is already established, her children are still of "unknown potential".

And that is why, the sources contended, the leadership is delaying the announcement of Gandhi's constituency.

The Congress spokesman, however, rejected reports that certain leaders had urged Gandhi not to be projected as the prime ministerial candidate and that the Congress should forge an alliance with the likes of Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party and Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party so that "secular forces" could come together against the BJP.

Jogi said the anger and resentment against Pawar, Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar, all of whom ditched the Congress to form the NCP, was still widespread. "Therefore, any question of joining hands with these backstabbers does not arise," he said.

He said the leadership saw the NCP and SP as equal powers, especially in Uttar Pradesh which is bound to witness multi-cornered contests in most constituencies.

Mulayam Singh has already asserted that the main fight will be between his party and the BJP, that the Congress will be a non-contestant. He cited electoral figures to drive home this point: that the Congress vote bank had slid to about 6 per cent whereas that of the SP had grown.

Uttar Pradesh has been a battleground for the Congress, BJP, SP and the BSP of Kanshi Ram. The election this time will witness another party jumping into the fray, namely, the NCP. If the Congress, SP and NCP fail to reach an understanding, political observers feel that the saffron party will be the eventual gainer.

Interestingly, the Congress seems to have begun regarding Uttar Pradesh as regained territory, lost since the dawn of Mandal politics in the country. That Muslims in the state are reported to be deserting the SP to join the Congress has gladdened the leadership.

"The Samajwadi may continue having pipe dreams. But the fact is, Muslims have started rejoining the Congress because they have seen our party's determination to defeat the communal forces spearheaded by the BJP," said Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Salman Khursheed.

Khursheed's contention came just before Jamait-ul-Ulema-e-Hind leader Mehmood Madani joined the Congress on Friday. The Jamait chief emphasised that his joining hands with the Congress would strengthen the secular forces.

The Congress chief, on her part, welcomed the Jamait. The Nehru-Gandhi family, she said, had always upheld the cause of the minorities and depressed classes.

Gandhi launched a veiled attack on Mulayam Singh. It was strange, she said, that those who had earlier professed a secular identity were now on a path that belied their secular credentials.

The attack, it was obvious, also included the NCP in its ambit.

The function at the Talkatora Indoor Stadium, where the Congress-Jamait alliance was witnessed, indicated that the Congress chief had started her party's election sojourn.

Tell us what you think of this report