NEW DELHI: Missing from the campaign arena, Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday wrote an open letter of appeal to the voters of Rae Bareli and Amethi to support the Congress party candidates, putting to rest her rumoured disapproval of the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance.
And with the Congress ‘matriarch’ issuing an appeal to the voters a day before the fourth phase of polling, the Samajwadi Party patriarch, Mulayam Singh, too is expected to do a follow-act. It could very well be an address to a public gathering with Rahul Gandhi.
Well, Sonia Gandhi and Mulayam Singh, who happen to sit next to one another in the current Lok Sabha, have had a long but uneasy political association. Her absence from the campaign field was seen in that context of unease.
Never since 1998, had Sonia Gandhi ever skipped an electoral campaign in the Gandhi family pocket borough. In fact, it was to these voters that she had gone to, complaining about the slow progress in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case way back in the ‘90s. That had been her first public statement -’’aap mere dukh samaj sakte ho’’ -- against the then Narasimha Rao Government, and just before she had taken plunge into politics, full throttle.
Two decades later as she wrote to them for support to her party, she blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for much of their problems --for ‘depriving’ them of welfare programmes -- and also for not being “among them.’’
She said she had abstained from election campaign “due to some reasons” (health to be precise) and that Rae Bareli and Amethi were “an integral part’’ of their lives.
“Our’s is a special relationship -- the biggest asset of my life,” she said in the letter addressed to voters in the two constituencies. Ironically, it underscores the shrinking of the Congress turf in what used to the biggest political play ground for the party, once upon a time.
A State which it had ruled for many decades before regional parties like the SP and the BSP sprung up, and the Jan Sangh became the Bharatiya Janata Party. A State which was the political nursery of most of its prime ministers!
Now targeting the PM, Sonia Gandhi accused ‘‘the central government’’ of ‘‘depriving rare voters of her constituency of welfare programmes, deliberately and I am deeply pained to see this happening.”
Urging the electorate to vote for Congress candidates, she wrote: “This would further strengthen me and the development of the constituency would happen at a greater pace.”
Sonia Gandhi however made no direct reference to the Congress alliance with the Samajwadi Party -- point that was immediately picked upon by the BJP which alleged that the alliance was in trouble.
Fifty-three constituencies will see polling on Thursday in the fourth phase of staggered assembly elections in the state including five seats in Rae Bareli and two in Amethi.
