Amethi stands firmly behind its son     

Every door, window and wall of pucca and kuchcha houses in Amethi has a sticker carrying the colour photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and TV actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani.

The same photograph, larger-than-life size, adorns both sides of publicity vans that are doing the rounds on kuchcha and pucca roads.

But the ubiquitous saffron cap and scarf-sporting BJP workers and supporters that one sees on the TV screens during the rallies of PM Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah are, surprisingly, rarely to be found in Amethi.

Who then would have pasted the Modi-Irani stickers on all the houses in Amethi?

The gram pramukhs (village heads) of three villages of Salon block, I visited, revealed the secret. “All the patwaris, lekhpals, shiksha mitras, Asha and Anganwadi workers were assigned by the district heads of their departments to ferry, distribute and paste BJP’s poll publicity materials in their assigned villages.”

Villages in Amethi are organised in clusters of different castes – the upper caste Brahmins and Thakurs and the lower caste Yadav, Jatav, Paasi and half a dozen other backward castes. Each caste cluster has a mukhiya (chief) whose diktat or decision is normally followed by the members. The poll managers of BJP candidate Smriti Irani, who has no personal connect with the people of this region of Uttar Pradesh, hope to manage the votes of different caste groups by ‘contracting’ the mukhiyas at a price linked to the numerical strength of various castes.

Though numerically less in numbers, the upper-caste Thakurs and Brahmins, who also happen to be the main land-owners of this former feudatory state ruled by an erstwhile raja, dominate the lower castes.

Sudhanshu Bajpai, a research student from Delhi University and a former AISA activist, recently joined the Congress and has volunteered to campaign for party president Rahul Gandhi.

Like Sudhanshu, seven other students from AISA from the Banaras Hindu University and Gorakhpur University have joined the Congress and are campaigning in Amethi for Rahul Gandhi.

“Today, the Modi-Shah duo-led BJP is the greatest threat to the secular and democratic republic of India and we believe only the Congress can stop the BJP,” says Aftab Alam.

Sudhanshu, Aftab, Dinesh Saroj, Deepak Singh and eight other students are part of the Congress team which is going door to door from village to village since the last ten days.

They have so far visited over 120 villages.

“How come I can’t find any BJP workers campaigning for Smriti Irani,” I asked.

“The BJP and RSS workers are following an altogether different strategy. They do their campaigning during the night. And, their focus is only on creating communal divide and projecting the Congress as pro-Muslim,” said Sudhanshu.

“The BJP campaigners tell the Paasi voters that once the whole region was ruled by a Paasi Raja who was overthrown by the Mughals. And, the Congress now wants to serve the interests of the Mughals. The BJP propagandists, with the help of photoshopped images and fake messages, are also inciting hate for the Nehru-Gandhi family by spreading falsehood that they had Mughal ancestry,” said Sudhanshu.

A few days ago, the BJP also tried to trigger communal violence in a village using a minor quarrel between Muslim and Paasi youth over stealing of some watermelons.

Some Paasi youth were arrested by the police following which the BJP got them out on bail, claiming to be their saviours.

It was mainly by inciting communal passion that in the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014 that Rahul Gandhi’s victory margin in Amethi came down to a little over a lakh votes.

“BJP may have succeeded in winning over the young generation of voters last time but this time they won’t. Their bluff and falsehood stand totally exposed,” says Altaf.

“Rahul is Amethi’s son. His father Rajiv, mother Sonia and grandma Indira Gandhi, have nursed us, the poor of Amethi, for over four decades,” said Murtidevi, a Paasi woman in her late 80’s.

Most men from Paasi, Kushwaha and other Schedule Castes have migrated to cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad and even Kerala to work as daily wage labourers.

“Women are Congress party’s strong supporters. The party’s NYAY poll promise of providing minimum income of Rs 72,000 a year directly to every women member of a poor family, appeals to them,” says a member of Sudhanshu’s team.

Women of Amethi have a personal connect with the Gandhi family also because of the self-help groups of women formed under the Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana in 2002.

Today, as many as one million women have joined the project of self-help and empowerment.

I met three women leaders who have formed 1,500 SHGs in Salon block with 1,50,000 women. “We are capable of meeting any challenges and men just cannot oppress us anymore,” says Haseena Begum, 40.

She explained the process of forming SHG, running and managing it. “If you find a woman who is as confident like me and as vocal, be sure she is from one of the SHGs,” she says.

“I know that many men would take money and liquor from the BJP, but we, women, will not fall into the trap,” said Priya Yadav, another member of SHG.

The BJP has widely distributed T-shirts and shoes among men, both young and old.

“We have taken the T-Shirts and shoes. We will also accept whatever money they will offer on the day of the polling,” said a man in his late fifties.

“But, we will vote for ‘Haath’ (hand) on May 6,” he added, winking.