Samrat to smart city: BJP keeps up pressure on Gandhis
IRANI NEVER FAILS TO MENTION HOW IN MERE 20 DAYS OF HER CAMPAIGN IN 2014, SHE MANAGED TO SLICE THE GANDHI SCION’S VICTORY MARGIN BY ‘80%’.
LUCKNOW: Ever since she went down fighting to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, union HRD minister Smriti Irani has been busy playing the shadow MP on the Gandhi scion’s political turf.
Having forced the Congress to fight out the ‘Samrat’ charge in its Amethi citadel on Sunday, Irani has already planned her next visit – the sixth since the 2014 loss - in September or October.
“She is keeping the Gandhis busy and under pressure. Smritiji has an amazing people-connect. The fact that despite losing she has been coming here so frequently is appealing to the people. And by throwing up uncomfortable queries like the ‘Samrat cycle land scam’ charge, she is keeping the top Congress leadership guessing, even rattled,” says local ABVP worker Madhav Bajpai.
Busy showering ‘goodies’ to people, Irani has already paid the first instalment of the accident insurance scheme for 50,000 people in Amethi so far. The union HRD minister has promised the people in the Gandhi bastion that she will return this time with the MUDRA initiative launched by the Modi government to help provide ‘security free” loans to ‘fund the unfunded’ small businessman and even roadside vendors.
“The speed with which big ticket projects, from fertiliser rake to better and improved rail and road connectivity, are being cleared for Amethi is astonishing. The BJP idea apparently is to tell Amethi that the Gandhis, who have been in power for most of the 60-odd years, no longer call the shots. The power cen- tre has shifted,” says Lucknow University professor Manoj Dixit.
In all her visits, Irani never fails to mention how in mere 20 days of her campaign in 2014, she managed to slice the Gandhi scion’s victory margin by ‘80%’.
Coming soon in Amethi are soil testing centre and a krishi vigyan kendra — projects that have been in demand for long.
Like in Amethi, the BJP is making a serious attempt at ‘unsettling the Gandhis’ in Rae Bareli, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency.
In Rae Bareli, the party is making this attempt through Supreme Court lawyer Ajay Aggarwal who fought against the Congress chief in the 2014 polls.
Aggarwal, who has been demanding action against the Congress chief ’s private secretary Dheeraj Srivastava for attending meetings in Rae Bareli on Sonia Gandhi’s behalf has met union minister of urban development Venkaiah Naidu to boost Rae Bareli’s claim over Meerut as the 13th smart city of UP.
“I am very confident that Rae Bareli will be selected,” says Aggarwal. Both Rae Bareli and Meerut are locked on similar points. By pushing Rae Bareli’s case, the BJP leader is trying to play up the fact how despite “sending top leaders and Prime Ministers the two constituencies continued to suffer even as Congress leadership prospered.”
Before 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP would be testing the Congress in the 2017 UP polls. In 2012, the Samajwadi Party won eight of the 10 assembly constituencies in Rae Bareli and Amethi. In the 2007 UP polls, the Congress had won eight seats.