Top Uttar Pradesh Congress leader Ajay Kumar Lallu was trailing as early leads emerged out of Tamkuhi Raj constituency in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The district of Kushinagar has seven assembly seats of Kushinagar, Khadda, Padrauna, Tamkuhi Raj, Fazilnagar, Hata and Ramkola, of which the BJP had won five in 2017 elections. Lallu had stopped the BJP in Tamkuhi Raj back then, even as the saffron party steamrolled through eastern UP and the state.
The Congress campaign in Tamkuhi Raj had revolved around inflation, high fuel prices and electricity bills, farmers’ woes, and crony capitalism. Addressing a rally in February, Priyanka Gandi had asked why the situation was such in the last five years that the youth are unable to find jobs, small traders and businessmen are worried over new policies being announced, farmers can’t earn a living, women are hit by inflation and concern for their safety, security. “How did such politics flourish here? For whom are these policies being made? It’s time to open eyes and understand this. The politics being done in this state and in the country is only for the rich, only for a select few industrialists,” Priyanka said.
She said employment is generated either from agriculture sector or middle-size businesses, government jobs and public sector undertakings (PSUs) like BHEL, ITI, Railways, etc. which were nurtured by the Congress, and were public property, but the BJP has sold them off. “There are 12 lakh vacant government job posts but UP CM and PM Modi, both of whom talk big, have failed to fill up these 12 lakh posts. Today during the elections, they come and say to you that they have provided four lakh jobs when they had promised 70 lakh jobs,” the Congress leader said.
She alleged the Centre has sold the country’s properties to two big industrialists who fund the BJP.
“The airports, the ports, and big companies of the country have been sold. For whom are the state government and the union government working, for whom are these policies being made,” she asked.