Congress scion Rahul Gandhi’s insistence on making “corruption” a core issue to attack the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh might appear self-defeatist, given that his party-led regime at the Centre has been indicted by the apex court on the 2G issue. Even so, the Congress general secretary’s election strategy enjoys staunch support from his party’s leaders in the state. For, they believe the telecom corruption taint on the UPA dispensation government would have little impact on the ground. To them, contrary to the BJP-led Opposition claims, it is no poll issue in Uttar Pradesh.
On its part, the BJP has gone to town declaring that the apex court order on 2G, which coincided with the Assembly polls in UP, would affect the credibility of the Congress, which has been positioning itself as a ‘clean alternative’ to a “corrupt” Bahujan Samaj Party administration. “With the UPA in the dock,” a BJP leader says, “the moral highground taken by Rahul Gandhi in these UP polls will come to naught.”
The grand old party rejects such claims. Senior Congress leader Mohan Prakash, who heads the party’s election screening committee for the state, says UP has its own domestic issues that gains prominence, given that this is an Assembly election. “The public here wants parivartan (change),” he told Business Standard. “They are fed up of Mayawati’s corruption and Mulayam’s ‘goonda raaj’. They are more concerned about these issues than they are about 2G corruption.”
His party colleagues concur. A Congress MP from the state who has been campaigning in UP extensively says the 2G order has not made a difference on the election scene. “Initially, we too were anxious about its repercussions. Not any more. It could still be an issue for the media and the political parties so as to target the Congress. For the voters, though, it is far too removed. Most of them are not even aware what 2G is all about.”
In fact, some senior Congress leaders laugh off the prospect of the 2G order becoming a poll issue. Among them, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, who is contesting from Rudrapur in Deoria, asserts that the 2G verdict has zero impact. “People here are more concerned about local issues, the alarming corruption they face on a day-to-day basis.”
As for farmers, their concerns centre around the prices of seeds and fertilisers. “The ‘kisan’ is very disgruntled with the BSP government because he has to pay exorbitant black-market prices for all of this. Worse, on the other hand, he does not even get the MSP for his produce,” he notes. “The farm labour may have benefited under the Mayawati rule, but not the farmer.”
To Singh, the main concern of the people in his constituency in general is about the housing benefits that can accrue to them from a scheme like the Indira Awas Yojana, or entitlement to facilities under the National Rural Health mission and pension benefits.
With local issues taking precedence over scams committed by the union government, the advantage that the BJP and BSP thought it had seized, is possibly non-existent. And surely so, from the Congress’ viewpoint.
