In Gandhi fiefdom, even Cong leaders can’t enter

“I will go only where she goes as Congress president. I have no role when she visits her constituency,” says Gehlot. Khursheed too admits: “That has been the tradition, all of us return from the border. She wants to directly interact with people in her constituency. I do not know if there is any exception this time given the special situation of the visit.”

Sonia visits her constituency once every two months, but this is her first after she resigned as MP and chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on the issue of office of profit.

Together with Rae Bareli, Amethi and Sultanpur make a Congress island in the vast UP expanse where the party hardly exists. Feroze Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have been MPs from one of these three constituencies. Mishra says the poll-machinery in Rae Bareli has already started rolling for Sonia’s re-election within the next six months. “The system put in place for the last Lok Sabha election was never dismantled. The moment Soniaji resigned, we activated it again,” he says.

From next week, worker meets will start from the panchayat level. “Important people in each village cluster are given the responsibility of mobilising voters and managing booths. We will have finished our job in three months, well before the code of conduct restrictions,” says another party functionary.

Unlike elsewhere in UP, Rae Bareli has a Congress organisation—there are 10-member booth committees, then bodies at bloc and district level. For every decision that the party takes, workers are involved. “For instance, the MPLAD money is used as suggested by the workers. Opinion is sought from the local level on everything,” says K L Sharma, who manages political affairs for both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Manoj Mattoo, a relative of Rajiv Gandhi, looks after the MPLAD fund.

The party hopes to raise Sonia’s victory margin to over four lakh votes this time. Sonia’s 2004 margin of 2.5 lakh votes had eclipsed Indira Gandhi’s record 1.73 lakh margin in 1980. Despite the impressive clout of the Gandhis here, Rae Bareli doesn’t make any ideological distinction between the Congress and BJP. In 1996 and 1998, when the Gandhis did not contest, the party lost to BJP.

Congress workers here reject the possibility of other senior party leaders campaigning. “Sonia is our biggest leader, who can get votes for her? She gets votes for others.”

Though they may be “outsiders” in Rai Bareli, party seniors are looking at Sonia’s new election campaign as rejuvenation therapy. Thousands of posters, banners and cut-outs are being organised to create a splash. A K Choudhary, a printer, was woken up on Friday midnight. He has not stopped working ever since.