Rahul's kisan yatra enters last leg, Congress counts the gains

The Deoria to Delhi kisan yatra started on September 6, will come to an end on October 6 with a farmer's rally

As Rahul Gandhi's Kisan Yatra across poll-bound Uttar Pradesh enters its last lap, the Congress is elated over the response so far but understands that translating the crowd into votes would be the real challenge.

The Deoria to Delhi kisan yatra started on September 6 and will culminate on October 6 with a big farmer's rally either in Delhi, Ghaziabad or Meerut.

According to the Congress leaders, their hope springs from the fact that the party's campaign is better organised and more focused ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls as compared to 2012.These leaders said that people wait for hours in the hot and humid weather for Rahul, in sharp contrast to 2012 when the voters did not see the Congress as a serious contestant in UP politics.

While critics have poked fun at Rahul's Khat Sabhas, a novel element in the outreach plan devised by strategist Prashant Kishor, saying that the villagers were coming mainly to pick up a cot or two after the rally, party leaders said such a thing happened only at the first meeting in Deoria, the starting point of the kisan yatra. Another reason why Congress managers sound more hopeful this time is that the party has been able to form booth-level teams which play a crucial role in mobilising the voters on the polling day and ensuring they cast their ballot. In 2012, the Congress suffered due to lack of this ground force and could win just 28 of the 403 seats, said a party insider.

Finally, the Congress leaders said when people see Rahul Gandhi sweating it out in the dusty by lanes across villages and make comparisons with the leaders of other political parties they find a certain genuineness in the claims being made by the Nehru-Gandhi family scion.

Rahul has been promising a farm loan waiver and reducing the electricity bills by half to woo the UP farmers. He is also promising a better law and order situation and all-round development in the politically crucial state to the voters while pointing out that the Congress works for all sections of society. According to Badri Narain Tiwari, a social researcher who has worked extensively in UP as a faculty of the GB Pant Institute of Social Sciences, Allahabad, and is currently associated with Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Congress has picked up an issue which finds resonance with the poor and small farmers of the state.

"UP lacks in development and farmers' plight is a genuine issue. The Congress campaign appears to be better organised and more focused on the targeted segment," said Tiwari adding "though there is impact on the ground, converting it into votes will not be easy." Congress veteran Rajaram Pal, who has been elected to parliament and state assembly from Kanpur Rural constituency several times, pointed out that people who feel cheated with the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party are flocking to the Congress khat sabhas in the hope that the party will address their concerns if it comes to power or shares power in the UP next year.

"I can say with my experience that the poll results next year will be surprising," said Pal, who accompanied Rahul across several districts like Kanpur, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Mathura, Aligarh, Rampur and Agra. Dhirendra Singh, a Congress leader from Gautam Buddha Nagar, said the kisan yatra was an effort to bring the people together.

The difference this time, he said, was that party workers were charged up as they felt involved with the campaign unlike in 2012 which was a top heavy campaign. The social media, which was missing in 2012, is also helping the Congress connect with the youth voters, he added.