By R.B. Singh
IANS
Gorakhpur : He is not such a big draw as the youthful Congress MP Rahul Gandhi nor does he possess the fiery demagoguery skills of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has in his own fashion been able to leave his imprint in election rallies in Uttar Pradesh.
After making almost half-a-dozen appearances in various parts of the state in a period of a month that has attracted modest crowds, Singh, unlike the other star campaigners, has been able to reach out to audiences by raising his pet topic of development.
“Remember the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme. It is the country’s most ambitious social welfare programme and it is operating in 39 of the state’s impoverished districts. It will help you all,” he announces in Gorakhpur, where a moderate gathering listens to him in rapt attention over the weekend.
“But the state government is not pursuing this scheme seriously just because it is afraid that the Congress will get credit for the success of the scheme,” adds Singh, taking an indirect swipe at Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.
“The good thing about the prime minister is that his campaign is dignified. He does not attack personalities and as soon as he starts delivering his speech, he looks like a concerned person for a concerned state,” said Param Kumar Singh, a Gorakhpur businessman.
At times, Singh’s oration is lost out on the crowds as he reels out facts and figures of the money spent on development works and when he compares indices with other states.
But at all his election meetings – Bijnor, Puranpur, Lakhimpur, Baharaich and the latest at Gorakhpur – the calm and cool campaigner does not fail to invoke the names of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul, urging people to reconnect with the party yet again.
“Uttar Pradesh is suffering because there is no Congress government. Your plight and misery will come to an end if you vote for the ‘haath’ (Congress symbol),” Singh calls out to an election audience in Lakhimpur.
With the Gandhi duo hotfooting it across the state and Singh pitching in with the development plank, the party’s election managers are confident that its tally this time around will improve substantially in the assembly ballot.
“It many not be an extraordinary leap in terms of seats but there will be an improvement nevertheless. An increased share of popular votes is a certainty. Out party which could win only 25 seats in the last election is counting not less than 40 this time around,” says an exuberant Virendra Madan, a party functionary.
If the poll managers are to be believed, the Congress, which had failed to win even a single seat in the urban areas of cities like Lucknow, Varanasi, Allahabad and Bareilly for over a decade, may finally open its account in all these cities.
Similarly, the party is expected to do well in some key constituencies including in Bareilly Cantt, Allahabad North and Allahabad South.
“There is optimism in the air as the party has won the mayoral election in Allahabad and Bareilly and lost the state capital by a whisker at end of last year. Let’s see how it all plays out on May 11 when the counting begins. There is going to be a surprise,” maintains state party leader Trijendra Ram Tripathi.