For every boundary that is breached in politics, there is a homecoming; for every leap into the unknown, a fallback into the comfort of the old.
It is the memory of that solace that seeps through the faded yellow brick walls and latches onto the brown doors that run around a large courtyard at Guruji ka Ghar.
Guruji, so addressed by Indira Gandhi, was Pandit Gaya Prasad Shukla, a freedom fighter. It was he who had first written an opinion piece in Navjivan—the newspaper founded by Mahatma Gandhi—on why Indira must contest from Rae Bareli. In 1930, when she made her maiden visit to the district, she was 12 and everyone called her Indu.
That rented house, with its large front yard marked by a furrowed, leafy neem tree, would go on to become the hub of Congress politics (and the designated central Congress office). The terrace was the venue for meetings. In the kitchen, leaders like Sheila Kaul helped Shukla’s daughter-in-law roll out chapatis or chop vegetables.
Guruji is no more. His son Jagdish Narayan passed away a year ago. Yet, on May 3, led by Preeti Shukla, the 73-year-old daughter-in-law of Guruji, the family organised the havan and puja that is mandatory before a member of the Gandhi family files the nomination.
After the puja, Preeti Shukla dropped into one end of the sari palla of both Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra the traditional offerings of rice, jaggery and turmeric (locally called a koncha) and gave every family member some money as blessings. “My father-in-law had first asked me to do it for Indira ji, who he called bhauji (sister-in-law),” she said. “It is like Sudama’s offering, but they have always received it with respect. What more do we want.”
That reference to Sudama, Krishna’s childhood friend, who thought as too modest his gift of rice, till the latter pried it out, is the underlying emotional note of this election in Rae Bareli. Sonia Gandhi, the longest serving president of the Congress, in a letter to the electorate which chose her five times wrote, “I know that you will, in every challenge, take care of me and my family as you have done till now....”
K.C. Shukla, 35, one of Guruji’s three grandsons said, “Rae Bareli owes its identity to the family. It is not just about politics.”
Rae Bareli, both town and district, is a dusty speck that hovers somewhere between the imagined glories of the past and its still not fully imagined future. Its most recognisable institutions, such as the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology and the Feroze Gandhi Institute of Engineering and Technology, bear the family name. But since the Congress fell out of favour in the state (the last chief minister from the party was Narayan Dutt Tiwari in 1988), Rae Bareli straddles an uncomfortable cusp.
For example, most of its sugar mills have shut down, those displaced for the rail coach factory have not received any compensation, a spice park lies abandoned and even the National Institute of Fashion Technology is unable to pay the rent for its temporary premises.
On the ground: BJP candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh (in white kurta) at a tea stall in Rae Bareli | Pawan Kumar
Shubha Shukla, a student in her early 20s said, “What do we get from being a VIP constituency? I don’t know of anyone in my family who has a good job locally.”
In Rae Bareli, it is easy to spot a Congress supporter in the first few seconds of a conversation. Their knowledge of politics and its role in development goes back to the Green and White Revolution, and India Mark II hand pumps—all of which bear a Congress imprint.
Kanhaiya Lal Chaudhary, 78, said, “Never has it been so difficult for farmers,” in reference to animals which force him to stay up at night to guard his 10 acre farm land. “Today it is just about jhooth (lies) and muft (freebies). The Congress supported our hard work.”
Vijay Shankar Agnihotri, the vice president of the local Congress unit said: “It would take two hours to count the achievements of our governments. This election, all sections are enthused by the 25 guarantees (of the party manifesto).”
But that is perhaps more fond thought than reality in an election which has come down to pitting religion against religion.
On this last remaining seat considered safe for the Congress, there also hovers the shadow of the Gandhi family’s long-time associate Kishori Lal Sharma who is fighting his own election in Amethi—a seat which Rahul Gandhi lost to Union Minister Smriti Irani. It was one of the most stunning upsets of the 2019 elections.
A hanger-on at the office of the district Congress committee—sited in a modest building called Tilak Bhawan—said, “Sharma is a master manager. Without him, they (workers) are directionless.” When probed deeper for what ‘master manager’ meant, he rubbed together his thumb and index finger. It is a gesture that, depending on how generally or specifically one looks at it, encompasses give and take or the exchange of money.
A random asking of who Rae Bareli’s winner will be elicits Rahul’s name all around the party office, and even the district and session court premises that lie across the road. But there is no answer for the why. We also hear often that the election is no walkover.
BJP candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh contested the last Lok Sabha poll, too. Against Sonia Gandhi’s 5.3 lakh votes, he polled 3.6 lakh. When calculated against the number of votes cast, this works out to be 38 per cent against the winner’s 56 per cent. To put this number into perspective, look at the 2014 election. Sonia polled 5.2 lakh votes, while Ajay Agrawal of the BJP pulled in second with 1.7 lakh votes. In terms of share of votes polled, the BJP got less than a third of what the Congress did. Thus, between 2014 and 2019, the BJP substantially improved its performance—both in terms of votes and vote share.
Singh is minister of state (independent charge) of horticulture and agriculture export. His family is enmeshed in panchayat and block level politics. His sprawling white home in the town’s Civil Lines area is named Panchvati (the garden of five)—a nod to him and his four brothers. His supporters see it as a marker of strong family values and Singh’s ability to take everyone along together. He started his political career with the Congress, doing two terms as a legislative council member in 2010 and 2016. The BJP ticket of 2019 was seen as a betrayal.
According to some Congress members, he had stood by Sonia’s side as she had filed her nomination in previous elections. THE WEEK could not independently verify this.
Singh’s political journey also has a sprinkling of support from the Samajwadi Party. He was close to the deceased former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. Much of his wealth comes from local public works contracts that came to him because of this proximity.
He calls himself the son of Rae Bareli.
When asked why the electorate would choose him, he said: “Rahul Gandhi is the son of Sonia Gandhi who... never stood with the sons of Rae Bareli in their hour of need.” Yet, he said, she could come here and stand in the sun for one-and-a-half hours when her son filed his nomination. “The public knows that it should vote for the son of Rae Bareli who will stand by them in good times and bad,” said Singh.
He was dismissive of a question on the electoral challenges before him. “Modi ji’s sewa, my sewa and my presence are enough for people to understand,” he said, adding that the Congress rule was rife with instability, terrorism and different kinds of corruption. “The country has risen over all of that and is marching rapidly on the path of development,” he said.
A few days earlier, on the campaign trail, Singh had remarked that a scared Rahul had sent his “peon” to contest from Amethi. It is the kind of language that has come to mark this very silent election, where only the voter knows what is happening. Low voter turnouts in the state’s first three phases of polling are worrisome, said political analysts, mostly for the BJP.
Ashok Singh, the former principal of the Feroze Gandhi College, who dabbled in electoral politics in 1993, said that the Yadav plus Muslim vote of the SP would help Rahul. “That vote is anywhere between five to six lakhs,” he said. “Going by just that, Congress should register a more emphatic win than 2019 this time.” It is notable that of the five assembly seats in Rae Bareli, only one is in the BJP’s kitty. The others have SP winners.
Ravi Pratap Singh, 38, an ayurvedic doctor and a yoga teacher, weighed in on both the candidates. “I like that despite being from such a big family, there is a simplicity with which Rahul approaches people and mingles with them; the manner in which he dresses up,” he said. “However, when he says things like ‘chowkidar chor hai’ it gives him an aura of negativity. Despite being who he is, he has not been able to build on that. No one can point a finger at Dinesh ji’s accessibility.”
One key project that the BJP candidate has promised the constituency is an all-women horticulture university—whether or not he wins. But look back and you will find it was Sonia who first promised Rae Bareli an all-women university in 2013. It was the same year that work on a 17.5km ring road connecting Lucknow to Prayagraj began. But, it is yet to be completed, while highways that got off in the BJP regime are readied. That is the discomfort of Rae Bareli’s cusp.
After filing his nomination, (and at the time of reporting) Rahul had not returned to Rae Bareli. Priyanka is in charge of the campaigning here and in Amethi. There is no doubting her charisma in these parts. In 1999, after two BJP terms, it was Priyanka who had sealed the election for the Congress by asking the electorate if it would stand by those who had betrayed her deceased father’s trust.
On any political turf, that kind of emotion has the power to transcend logic.
Yet, no matter which way the voter tilt appears in Rae Bareli, the electoral match is not over till the last vote has been cast. Remember, this is the same constituency which served defeat to Indira in 1977 and was swept away by the BJP wave in 1996 and 1998.