Despite both parties joining hands to fight the elections, they have fielded different candidates for the polls in this region, reports Karan Choudhury.
It is a confusing time for party workers of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in Amethi. Are they fighting together or against each other, is the question they are still trying to figure out.
Both parties have fielded candidates for the assembly elections in the region. Coupled with liberal doses of mud-slinging and name calling, which sometimes borders on being outright sexist, the lines between being allies or enemies have long blurred here. To add to this chaos, Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate Garima Singh, former wife of the Maharaja here, is playing the martyr.
Though Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav are fighting a united battle against the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party, Amethi seems to have been untouched by the camaraderie. The SP has fielded tainted Gayatri Prajapati, the current member of legislative assembly from the area. The Congress has stacked its hopes on ex-MLA from Amethi, Ameeta Sinh.
Not only party workers, things are confusing for even the people of Amethi, to say the least. For junior-level party workers, campaigning has become a problem. They are unable to answer uncomfortable questions.
“We are asked why SP is fielding a candidate when Congress has one and vice-versa,” said a young party worker who has been with the Congress for five years. “The SP candidate here has a chequered past and they ask us why Congress is fighting with a party which has such candidates. Also, Garima Singh is fighting on a BJP ticket and they are calling it a fight for her rights. We do not know what goes on at the top, but convincing people to vote for us is a task.”
Prajapati is facing charges of rape and sexual harassment. He was booked after intervention of the Supreme Court. He even broke down during a rally in Amethi, calling the allegations a BJP conspiracy against him.
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Sanjay Sinh -- erstwhile Maharaja of Amethi, Congress leader and Ameeta Sinh’s husband -- said it was decided earlier only a Congress candidate would be fielded here. But things changed later.
“It was earlier decided no SP candidate will fight elections in Raebareli and Amethi. But due to the pressure on the chief minister, he allowed an SP candidate to fight from here.”
Batting for her spouse, he said: “She is the only one who can counter the sufferings caused by Gayatri Prajapati. I think Amethi has never seen this kind of criminality, social unrest, suffering of people -- all due to the present MLA. Even the Supreme Court has asked for an FIR to be lodged against him.” Sinh, however, made it clear that while they were fighting SP here, they would support Akhilesh Yadav as the chief ministerial candidate.
Ameeta Sinh said a lot of issues are involved when two major parties come together. “There is a lot of give and take. Workers, parties and ideologies are involved. You have to come to some kind of understanding. So, I guess, the leaderships of the two parties must have come to some understanding when they had to take this decision,” she said, on the Congress and SP fielding candidates from the seat.
But there was no confusion in the minds of party workers as well as the people of Amethi and they would vote for her, she said. The Congress was behind her. “Priyanka ji (Gandhi Vadra) made it clear that she is 100 per cent behind me. People are tired of the atrocities committed by the present MLA.”
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On the BJP fielding Garima Singh as the candidate from Amethi, she said these were mere stunts. “That the BJP had to give this kind of candidate a ticket obviously suggests they have realised that they have lost the battle. They must have thought they have anyway lost it anyway, so they might as well dramatise it,” she said.
During the SP’s rally in Amethi on Monday, allegations of corruption and jokes about Sanjay Sinh made the rounds. After the chief minister arrived, mud-slinging against the Congress stopped. Akhilesh Yadav himself had said SP’s cycle would run a lot faster with Congress’s hand on it.
Both Rahul Gandhi and SP party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav would be in Amethi on February 23. While Gandhi would be at a Congress rally, Yadav will hold a meeting at a school in the region.
