Why Rae Bareli for Rahul Gandhi? | Lok Sabha elections 2024 | Election 360

hello and welcome to elections 360 with me shna Kayer I'm recording this from gorakpur this is my second day in eastern up and I will be spending a few more days one of the biggest takeaways for me in this store has been how well the India Alliance is working on the ground and the recall value that the alliance has today Congress president Malik Arjun kge and samajwadi president KES yadav also held a press conference in lakau and all the efforts are for the SB Congress combined to work seamlessly in uttar Pradesh but without further Ado I want to take you to a seat where this coordination will be put to test more than anywhere else I'm talking about Ry bareli where senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is contesting from I will be joined by my senior colleague sandep fukan who is going to answer some of the obvious questions as to why Ry bar and not a mate and also explain the very complicated arithmetic of the seat so the Congress kept us waiting till the very last minute kept everyone guessing and just hours before the final deadline for filing the nomination they declared the names for the candidates their candidates for a Mi and Ry bar and it was a bit of a bouncer we have Rahul Gandhi contesting from Ry bar and from a mate we have K Sharma kishori L Sharma who has managed both the constituency for last four decades now to I today I have my colleague sandep who will help us answer very very crucial questions welcome sandip thank you I will begin with very basic question why Ry bar and why not am 18 okay so to answer your question I think U I would use three words a little bit of History uh chemistry and arithmetic I'll explain each of them history because you know Ry bareli if you look at the immediate history of ryber that was the only seat that Congress managed to win in 2019 Rahul Gandhi's mother Sonia Gandhi managed to win that uh seat even though her vote share had come down but you know this is a seat that she has rep presented now for uh five terms uh since uh 2004 but in between she had actually resigned over a controversy U I mean you know there was there was yeah there was a controversy regarding office of profit so she resigned and then she got reelected so five terms in all and now she's moved to rajas saaba so that seat uh the obvious question was that who from the family would take it uh it now it appears that the son took it up uh there's been a long history with regard to this seat uh in 52 to 57 uh Rahul Gandhi's grandfather uh represented fero Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi's father represented the seat after that his grandmother Indira Gandhi represented the seat and then eventually his mother now uh he's going to have a contest there so uh that's the history uh the second talking about chemistry I mean if you follow the ongoing campaign that Priyanka Gandhi vadra is doing right now for her brother uh almost in every speech she mentions how this is a seat um where I mean this is a constituency where the people have a special bonding with the Gandhi family post emergency when Indira Gandhi lost the election uh she took that as a learning lesson she came back uh and then eventually uh she won that seat again and uh also revived the Congress and came to power at the center so you know uh so there is a special chemistry there's a special bonding with the people and when it comes to arithmetic if you look at these two seats uh this is an interesting figure you know when you generally talk about amiti and rber it appears as if that these are two pocket Burrows of a congress party but actually uh in assembly if you I mean you know between these two loab constituencies there are 10 assembly seats and uh six of them were won by the samajwadi party four of them were won by the BJP in 2022 assembly elections so quite clearly and if you look at even the votes pulled Congress had just about 1.5 lakh votes whereas samajwadi party had nearly 5 lakh votes uh so clearly here the bigger player uh in terms of you know on the ground presence the bigger player is samajwadi party and they are in an alliance so the arithmetic is such that uh and the BJP hasn't put up a very strong candidate so uh given the fact that bjp's candidate is also um I mean you know compared with smti Rani uh Mr Singh is a you know relatively like and he's also an ex Congress he was in the Congress for about s years exactly and an mlc yes yes so I mean he's a lightweight in terms of uh profile so I think because of all these factors they would have figured out that this is a safer seat for Rahul Gandhi and the obvious answer in one word is that who would want to lose a second time uh if that is a possibility that they would like to rule it out I mean Congress pin doctoring has been that look we did not want to make this a narrative between I mean a political Narrative of uh Rahul Gandhi versus Smitty Rani so we actually denied her that opportunity or denied the BJP that opportunity and we moved away from that seat irrespective of what Congress says or their Spin Doctors say fact is that smiy Rani is the she defeated Rahul Gandhi uh and broke that winning streak for the Congress uh and fact is that you know this is going to be a very tough seat uh for Rahul Gandhi to rest back because he hasn't spend time there yeah inam so which is why this seemed like a safer seat okay now uh you spoke about how samajwadi party is the stronger uh Ally on the ground how well is the alliance working and is there a Chemistry Between the Congress and SP well I would say that um as we speak you know on Friday for example um Rahul Gandhi campaigned for uh a yadav in K from where Mr yadav is contesting the samajwadi party Chief but we did not see the same kind of picture when Rahul Gandhi had gone to file his nomination uh we saw all three members of the Gandhi family prianka Gandhi vadra Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi all of them there while you know submitting their Nom his nomination papers we didn't see that uh you know we we in that picture we did not see akilesh yadav we did not see a single red cap there yeah so that should have been you know that's like an obvious you know uh question that why aren't they there because I mean after all it's a Alliance and the alliance has to work very well on the ground for Mr Gandhi to win that seat uh if he wins it that is uh so that's one the second part I would say is that uh on the ground it's I mean you know I've been following uh online I've been following the campaigns of Priyanka Gandhi and you can see red caps you can see Sam the party workers uh you know jointly campaigning uh so that has happened but perhaps a little more effort should have been uh in my opinion so far they've had only uh one joint press conference earlier and uh again uh the one in K the latest one earlier there was a and the joint press conference was gazabad in before his uh name was announced for before before Rahul Gandhi's name was announced or even before has filed his nomination uh and that was in gaziabad and then uh on Friday uh they held another one in kot but uh I think they could have done a little more in terms of moving around the state uh these two top leaders uh because remember BJP is really powerful there so uh if you really want to take them I mean if you really want to take the BJP seriously uh then you will have to spend time I mean it's politically utar Pradesh is the most crucial State there can't be a state with bigger Rewards or better rewards than up there are 80 seats so as we speak of the uh rally The Joint rally of Rahul Gandhi and akilesh yadav is going on and both of them have claimed that BJP is going to do uh really badly in this 2024 elections last time they had about uh 63 seats in 2019 in 2014 they had at 71 and both the parties are hoping that that figure comes down drastically for them to have any real shot now my question is and which I'm sure everybody wants to know an answer to Priyanka Gandhi who is campaigning extensively in the two seats and we believe that she's camping there for till the 10 days yeah for 10 days till the silent period begins why didn't she contest yeah so that's the mystery you know uh depending on who you talk to you get completely different answers for example you know that the uh once the suspense was over and kishori Sharma was announced as the candidate for amii and Rahul Gandhi for rber BJP really pounced on the Congress and said that uh look I mean you know they ran away they got scared uh Priyanka Gandhi got scared Rahul Gandhi got scared and ran away from amiti uh you know for the fear of losing to Smithy Rani for a second time and all that then another narrative was uh from the Congress that look uh it would have sent terribly bad Optics if all three gandhis were in Parliament Mrs Gandhi Sonia Gandhi is already there as a member of the rajas saaba from Rajasthan uh Rahul Gandhi is contesting from two seats he would surely hope to win uh if not both at least one so he's contesting from Ward he's contesting from now rber so there was a suggestion and we've reported in the Hindu uh We've what we've reported is that there was a resolution passed uh in the in the up Congress committee and then that resolution was read out in the central election committee meeting that both of them should contest and there was a suggestion from some quarters I mean I wouldn't like to name them but you know uh uh people who are are you know who are strategists of the party they had suggested that why not Pitch Priyanka Gandhi against smiy Rani from uh from amiti and uh you know and let Rahul continue uh with ryber that did not happen kishori L Sharma as we all know that I mean we've all followed uh he was like the manager of these two constituencies so whenever the gandhis would be there in their constituencies Kori Sharma uh would be present uh he would be you know everywhere uh so so he came up as the next best choice uh the reason what we've been told from the Congress side is that as I said that the one part one reason is that it would have sent a bad message or bad Optics all three Gandhi in Parliament you know especially in the wake of parad attack from the the dynasty politics it would send a great picture the other uh explanation that was offered not on record all this is off the Record the other explanation that was offered is that Priyanka Gandhi is really a star campaigner she is a general secretary and a member of the Congress working committee mind you but she does not have the responsibility of managing any state she is not in charge of any state she a minister without portfolio she's exactly she's like a minister without portfolio so she used to manage up uh it really didn't work very well for her um neither in the 2019 Loa elections nor did it work very well in the 2022 she put up a spirited campaign but you know it just ended up getting two seats in even the in the assembly so this is perhaps one of the worst performances of the Congress I think given this bit of background she may have been a little hesitant to contest and take a plunge because this is not the best time to make an electoral debut and then uh you know if you don't because her debut as a general secretary and in charge of up did not uh spectacularly failed yeah it spectacularly failed yeah exactly but the other uh explanation that was offered is and uh again off the Record was that she's a star campaigner she moves um you know all over the country so she wouldn't have time to uh devote to this to her own constituency and that's a little difficult to buy considering Rahul Gandhi is also your star campaigner and he is contesting from Two constien and it's difficult to buy more so because you see she's camping there for 10 days exactly so if you can do if you can campaign for your brother you could have campaigned for yourself so I'm not sure there's no I mean you know as I said that there's no official explanation will be yeah they never will but I mean you know these are all possibilities one is that uh that you know she's a star campaigner she can't spare time so uh you know she needs to move around so she wouldn't want to dedicate uh I mean or restrict herself to campaigning only in one seat the other explanation is that you know this perhaps is not the best time uh and another explanation is that all three Gandhi shouldn't be in the wake of you know Relentless attack on the Congress or uh you know regarding dynastic politics and parivar vad uh it shouldn't appear that all three gandhis have comfortably made it to Parliament so at least one of them should stay out so all these various possibilities but you know it depends take your pick yeah so obviously BJP is going to put all their energies to make sure that uh Rahul Gandhi does not return to the Hindi Heartland we will know which way the dice Falls only on June 4th thank you so much Andi for joining thank you sh thank you for watching the Hindu for more such videos which carry a lot of insight do tune in to our Channel on YouTube

Channel: The Hindu

Views: 4,028

Keywords: Lok Sabha elections 2024, Uttar Pradesh, amethi, congress, lok sabha polls 2024, rae bareli, rahul gandhi, smriti irani, priyanka gandhi

Id: bmS6HzlCp4c

Length: 15min 48sec (948 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024