Amethi: the victim of political brawls

Amethi, the Gandhian stronghold since 1947 has always dreamt of unparalleled growth-what with the Gandhi’s promising them the world, come every election season! It was first ruled upon by Sanjay Gandhi, followed by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, an MP from the city for 10 consecutive years. Post Rajiv’s demise, Amethi was ‘inherited’ by his widow, Sonia Gandhi and now has been passed onto the Congress heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi.

Seeing the obvious lack of growth and thereby the massive stated opportunity, during the elections in 2014, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and now Minister of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) Smriti Irani left no stone unturned to win the constituency for herself, ousting the Gandhi’s from their stronghold. Alas, that was not to be. Irani must have blamed her ‘rotten luck’ for her unexpected defeat and Rahul’s success, since a constituency, still counted as one of the country’s most deprived, surely needed a change in leadership.

But then, nothing could be shoddier than the fact that even big names from the political class could not even get the town the very basic in facilities. In fact, the trump card played against it and left it as a victim. A victim of political brawls.

Or if we just change a few words in what has been said so far, then maybe you will get a clearer picture of the debacle that Amethi is witnessing today and how much worse it could turn in the next few years, given the never-dying down tug-of-war.

It won’t be wrong to say that Amethi, right from the very beginning was a mere card which was used by the big political faces of the day. Inhabitants of Amethi thought that the political biggies would bring them the basic infrastructure they so desperately lacked. Instead, this place only made headlines for the pointless battles the political brass fought. The tide in fact turned for the worse in 1984, when ousted Gandhi bahu, Maneka fought a pitched battle against brother-in-law, Rajiv Gandhi, soon after her mother-in-law, his mother and the nation’s Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Maneka fought tooth and nail, but lost to Rajiv by a massive margin, given the sympathy wave he was riding on soon after his mother’s untimely murder outside her own house, by one of her own bodyguards.

Amethi, soon turned into a ground for political buffoonery, with over 40 independent candidates standing against the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in the 1989 elections. But, despite the bofors’ scandal taint, Rajiv registered a sounding victory, with a margin of over two lakh votes. The astounding defeat notwithstanding, the trend continued and Independent candidates (in more than usual numbers) fought elections from Amethi.

During the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP, very aggressively campaigned under the leadership of Narendra Modi with the slogan ‘congress-mukt Bharat’ (Congress-free India) and former model and TV actress Smriti Zubin Irani was nominated as the BJP candidate from Amethi. Yet another competitor was the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) poet-turned-member Kumar Vishwas, who wanted to give Rahul a run for his money. However, despite the several failings of the Congress party in Amethi and more so that of the Gandhi-clan, the town voted back into power Rahul Gandhi.

The oldest scuffle ground for BJP and Congress, Amethi, in 2014 came under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and it experienced another tussle when their leader disappeared and reports published afterwards informed about his ‘vacation’. Rahul’s biggest opponent, BJP candidate from Amethi, Smriti Irani, without missing out on a chance reached out to the people of Amethi and distributed compensation cheques to the farmers who were dying of unseasonal rains. Not just this but Irani also played a card against Gandhi here and accused him of ‘holidaying’ when people of his constituency were in trouble.

With no choice left this time, Gandhi in his reply pointed the finger at the Modi government for scrapping the Food Park plan that he claimed could have generated employment for hundreds in Amethi.

All the fighting aside, the real concern now is if Amethi gained anything from all the mud-slinging over the decades. The answer to that is that Amethi today is known for all the wrong reasons. Far from being a developed township it could have been, given the political attention it has had over the years, it is today known as one of the country’s most impoverished regions, for the very same reasons. And if the fashion persists, it’ll only be a case of from the frying pan to the fire for the residents of Amethi.

Image: indiatimes