Rahul Gandhi is contesting the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat for the first time. In their campaign, the Congress is highlighting the 100-year Nehru-Gandhi family’s connection to the seat.
The party is also trying to assure voters that Rahul Gandhi will be there for them, an attempt to counter the BJP’s accusation that the party disappears from the seat after coming to power.
The two-pronged strategy – “Sewa ke sau saal” (100 years of service) and “Rae Bareli ke Rahul” (Rae Bareli’s Rahul) – will soon be launched through publicity material and social media posts, said party sources.
Rahul’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is leading the campaign in the seat held for four terms by their mother Sonia Gandhi.
Invoking the past
Priyanka addressed more than 25 ‘nukkad’ (street corner) meetings in the past two days in Rae Bareli’s Bachhrawan and Rae Bareli Sadar Assembly segments. She repeatedly mentioned the January 7, 1921 Munshiganj massacre and how four generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family, right from Motilal Nehru, have stood with the people of the constituency.
Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru stood with farmers during the 1921 massacre by the police and the latter was arrested as well, said party sources. To reinforce the point, Priyanka started her campaign on Thursday from Munshiganj’s Shaheed Smarak that marks the killings.
Priyanka has said that while mistakes were made, lessons were learnt too, citing the example of her grandmother Indira Gandhi who was defeated from Rae Bareli but won the seat later. Since India’s first election in 1952, Congress has held the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat for 66 out of 72 years.
On Thursday, BJP candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh and senior party leader Suresh Chand Tiwari told workers how the Gandhi family had “left Rae Bareli and they would leave after election again”.
It is Dinesh Pratap Singh, a local leader, who will remain with you in your good and bad days, Tiwari said. Singh’s publicity material projects him as the “light” of Rae Bareli.
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