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The city of Raebareli in northern India has for most of the last 75 years been the political fiefdom of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that dominates the once-powerful Congress party and provided three of the nation’s prime ministers.
But, with India’s general election starting today, the party’s central offices there tell the story of its decline.
Clothes dried in the courtyard, while a washing machine beeped and a family living out of the office went about its morning chores. No other Congress workers were present.
“Some people here say the end of the Gandhi era is now imminent,” said teacher K.C. Shukla, a Congress member who resides in the house where his relatives had set up a party office decades ago.
Raebareli is one of just 17 constituencies being contested by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is targeting a clean sweep of its 80 seats in the lower house of parliament.
Virtually all opinion polls suggest Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist party will return to power for a rare third term – and dominate in Uttar Pradesh – when results from the seven-phase elections are announced on June 4.
Neither party has yet named its candidate for Raebareli, though both BJP and Congress officials said an announcement would be made soon.
Congress members are clamouring for former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka Gandhi, 52, to make her electoral debut from Raebareli and her brother Rahul Gandhi, 53, from Amethi, another Nehru-Gandhi stronghold in Uttar Pradesh. But the party said on Tuesday an announcement will be made at the right time.
Mr Rahul kept up the suspense during a press conference on Tuesday and was non-committal when asked about who the party will field against the BJP’s Smriti Irani in Amethi for the election on May 20.
“This is BJP’s question, very good. Whatever order I will get, I will follow it. In our party, all these (selections of candidates) decisions are taken by the Congress Election Committee,” Mr Gandhi said.
Amethi, once a bastion of the Gandhi family, was won by the BJP in the 2019 elections. Speculation has been rife that Mr Rahul, who has already filed his nomination from Wayanad in Kerala, is not sure if he can win Amethi again – a seat represented earlier by his father, uncle Sanjay Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi.
In the 2019 elections, Ms Irani, a Union minister, unseated Mr Rahul, ending his 15-year reign in Amethi.
On April 12, Ms Irani criticised Mr Rahul for ignoring the people of Amethi and questioned his commitment to the constituency.
“You all must have seen that Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination and declared in writing that Wayanad is his family. It was okay till there. Then we heard from a leader of Karnataka that Rahul Gandhi said the people of Wayanad are more loyal,” the BJP leader charged.
The Raebareli seat was represented by Ms Sonia, 77, Congress’ long-time president, from 2004 until she entered the upper house of parliament this year.
Twenty-one lawmakers, party officials and analysts, including 13 members of the Congress, that Reuters interviewed said the party faces another big loss in Uttar Pradesh, and risks losing its status as India’s main opposition group as rival regional parties make gains elsewhere in the country.
They blamed lacklustre management by Ms Sonia and her son, and the family’s inability to rally the country’s fractured centre and centre-left opposition.
When asked by Reuters at a campaign rally about his political future and opinion polls, Mr Rahul said: “My job is to spread political activism; results can never be predicted.”
Mr Jawaharlal Nehru – Mr Rahul’s great-grandfather – was India’s first prime minister and his Congress ruled India for 54 of the 76 years since independence. Mr Rahul’s grandfather, born Feroze Gandhy, changed his last name after being inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.
Many Indians had an emotional connection with the Gandhi family, said political analyst Rasheed Kidwai, the author of three books about the Congress and the clan.
Such was their influence that for decades “there were no factional leaders within the Congress,” he said, adding that a long-standing combination of fear and respect for the family had recently dwindled.
“UP had given votes to four generations of Nehru-Gandhi family, today no one is listening to them in UP. It’s like the state has bid farewell to Nehru-Gandhi family, so it’s natural to be frustrated and disappointed,” Union Minister and BJP leader Anurag Thakur said a few weeks ago.
Mr Rahul continues to lead public rallies and his sister is a top party strategist. But the family looks set to preside over a third straight loss in national elections.
Ms Priyanka led the Congress to a humiliating defeat in the Uttar Pradesh state elections in 2022, harming the prestige of the Gandhi name, according to political analysts.
Mr Dinesh Singh, a minister in the BJP-run Uttar Pradesh government, told Reuters that his party’s main challengers in the state were two regional parties, including the BSP, who are contesting more than 40 seats.
The Gandhis “will be phased out completely,” he predicted of the upcoming elections.
Mr Pankaj Tiwari, a senior Congress leader in Raebareli, said that Priyanka -– who has never held elected office – would likely contest from Raebareli and “will win with a record high margin.”
But not many other Congress leaders are confident of the party doing well in Uttar Pradesh.
Reuters
“UP had given votes to four generations of Nehru-Gandhi family, today no one is listening to them in UP. It’s like the state has bid farewell to Nehru-Gandhi family, so it’s natural to be frustrated and disappointed.”
