WHEN personalities dominate, issues such as caste, religion, creed and gender, which normally influence an election, get relegated to the sidelines. This is what has happened in Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, where Congress president Sonia Gandhi is seeking re-election.
Sonia vacated her traditional seat Amethi in favour of her son Rahul Gandhi and shifted to Rae Bareli. She immediately struck a chord with the people when she described Rae Bareli as pavitrabhoomi (sacred land) for her because it had sent both her father-in-law Feroz Gandhi and mother-in-law Indira Gandhi to the Lok Sabha several times.
A euphoric welcome awaited her when she arrived in Rae Bareli on April 6 to file her nomination, accompanied by Rahul and daughter Priyanka Vadra. Women waited with flowers and gulal (coloured powder) to welcome Sonia and children pranced around, draped from head to toe in the Congress(I) tricolour. Sonia too did not disappoint. Wherever she saw women and children, she quickly got down and spoke to them.
The people of Rae Bareli know what it means to be a `VVIP constituency' and are happy to regain the tag after many years of neglect. With closed factories, potholed roads, long spells of power cuts and general negligence of the administration, people have understood the importance of having a VIP as their representative in the Lok Sabha. Rae Bareli's days will change for the better now, was the overwhelming opinion of the people. Even Muslims, who had turned away from the Congress post-Babri Masjid demolition, have joined the chorus. People are hopeful that many industries which were started during Indira Gandhi's time and nurtured by Rajiv Gandhi, but have shut shop for years will now be revived. Notwithstanding the BJP's blitzkrieg against Sonia on her foreign origin, the slogan in Rae Bareli is Sonia nahin yeh aandhi hai, doosri Indira Gandhi hai (She is not Sonia but a hurricane, she is another Indira Gandhi).
Sonia, on her part, reminded the people of the atoot rishta (unflappable relationship) her family has with the people of Rae Bareli. "I am here to continue that," she told the ecstatic crowd. In fact, looking at past results, this overwhelming show of support does not come as a surprise. Rae Bareli has been a Congress(I) seat, barring a brief spell in 1996 and 1998 when the BJP wrested it. The Nehru-Gandhi family charisma works here.
In the 1999 Lok Sabha election, Capt. Satish Sharma was the Congress(I) nominee against the BJP's Arun Nehru. Sharma's campaign seemed to have come unstuck before Priyanka pitched in and turned it around for him. He won 32.76 per cent of the votes. Priyanka's attack on Arun Nehru had such a dramatic effect that from what looked like a winning position he slid to the fourth slot with just 19.9 per cent of the votes. Even the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, never much of a force here, fared better with 22.01 and 20.13 per cent of the votes respectively. This time the other contestants, the S.P.'s Ashok Singh and the BJP's Girish Narain Pandey, have been blown away by the Nehru-Gandhi whirlwind.
The overwhelming support for the Congress(I) here has a historical reason. People are keen on compensating Sonia for their "1977 mistake" when they defeated Indira Gandhi to teach her a lesson for the Emergency.
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