Maneka, Varun put the mockers on themselves in Sultanpur

By Radhika Ramaseshan

Both seem removed from the political dynamics set in motion by uplift of OBCs and the Dalits

IN SULTANPUR On a good day, it takes little less than an hour to navigate the 32 km from Amethi to Sultanpur. But the perpetual carp of Sultanpuris is that their town does not carry the VVIP cachet that Amethi claimed as a birthright.

Sultanpur, they complained, was a poor cousin of its glamorous but equally uncared-for neighbour. Sultanpur mattered for as long as Amethi was one of the tehsils it housed. On July 1, 2010, Amethi was carved out as a separate district by merging three tehsils of Sultanpur and two of Rae Bareli and in a stroke, several of its trade and business relocated next door, hoping that the more famous and consequential of the Gandhi tagline that Rahul Gandhi wore would shore up prospects. The cherry on the cake, the icing and indeed the cake itself was transported to Amethi with the tehsils, and the crumbs left for Sultanpur. A little pensively, Abhishek Pandey, a Sultanpur pharmacist, said, “Many of my colleagues moved to Amethi because business is better even by the standards in this part of Uttar Pradesh.”

Rahul was put through a gruelling battle from Amethi on May 6. On Sunday, his estranged aunt, Maneka Gandhi faces just as arduous a contest at Sultanpur that returned her son Varun Gandhi on the back of the Narendra Modi “wave” in 2014. Going by the articulations of Maneka and Varun, the duo has not helped themselves or the BJP, their party. If anything, they seemed several notches removed from the political dynamics that were set in motion by the empowerment of the other backward classes and the Dalits. There’s little doubt, though, that mother and son know what Hindutva and “nationalism” are about.

To assess the depth of their alienation, listen to what TN Pandey, a Brahmin and a banker living in Ghuppa-Pandeypurva village in Sultanpur, said: “Modi and Amit Shah should have fielded Sonu Singh from here. He would have come out in flying colours. I wouldn’t have a problem voting for Sonu, although he’s not a Brahmin.”

Sonu, whose given name is Chandra Bhadra Singh, is the SP-BSP “gathbandhan” candidate, fighting on the BSP’s symbol. Sonu and his brother, Monu (Yash Bhadra Singh) are Rajputs who have a Robin Hood kind of image. Sultanpur’s social elite saw them as “bullies” but to those beholden to them, the Singhs were “gods”. A local SP functionary explained the siblings’ relevance. “They habitually break the law but sometimes the violation is justified, especially when justice seems out of sight for the poor. They browbeat the system that’s angled against the poor,” he said. Sonu has coaxed the loyalty of the backward caste Mallahs of his village, Mayangmajhawar, who fished for a living from the Gomti river. Earlier, the Rajputs denied the Mallahs access to the river bank by claiming ownership over the sandy tracts. Sonu broke the stranglehold and facilitated passage to the fishermen. “He’s available to all for help, Hindu, Muslim, poor and the not-sopoor,” said Nasir Ali, a local builder from Islamganj, adjoining Sonu’s village.

Shortly after landing at Sultanpur to campaign for Maneka, Varun took on Sonu in language that, above all, amounted to a rank insult to a “high caste” Rajput. Varun invoked his lineage (“I am the son of Sanjay Gandhi”) and dismissed his mother’s opponent as one fit to untie his shoelaces. The local SP leader said, “Barring a few Rajputs, the rest were ready to vote the BJP out of loyalty to Yogi Adityanath (the chief minister). Varun’s comment changed their mind in Sonu’s favour. Even the literate Rajputs had a rethink.”

Maneka had already antagonised Muslims in her infamous launch speech where she threatened to disown and not work for them, if they did not vote the BJP. She later disclaimed the speech that went viral on social media by then. On May 6, Varun improvised on the “us versus them” leitmotif, warning that those who voted for “others” (the ‘gathbandhan’) deserved to go to Pakistan.

A ballpark estimate put the voting population of Muslims at 3.5 to 4 lakh. “For the past five years, we were treated like castaways. We can’t say namaz on the roads; ‘azaan’ has stopped because the BJP said the muezzin’s call disturbed Hindus. We can’t sell meat,” said Mansoor Ali, an SP worker. At Baramjeetpur village, that has 550 votes of only Muslims, Junaid Ahmed, who runs a taxi service, said the die was cast in Sonu’s favour. “At the Centre, we would love to see Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister but we cannot waste our votes on the Congress candidate (Sanjay Sinh) because the ‘gathbandhan’ has a stronger base vote. The BJP has to go,” he emphasised. The Muslims were so resolutely motivated that those working in the Middle East arrived well in time to vote while those from Mumbai were on their way.

While a regional BJP leader conceded it wasn’t “easy” for the party apparatuses to work in sync with the “independent-minded” Gandhis, “we are looking at bringing Modi back to power and not Maneka”. He sounded abit miffed with Maneka’s emotive remembrances of Sanjay Gandhi, her husband, when she filed her nomination. She mentioned Modi cursorily. “There are issues. Our workers are asked uncomfortable questions about why Varun did not visit them as often as they would have liked him to (when he was the MP) but in the end, our message is look only at Modi,” the leader said.