No hope for Gandhi family in lok sabha elections from Rae Bareli

Friday, 4 April 2014 - 8:50am IST | Place: New DelhiLucknow | Agency: DNA

When Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the Rs1,685-crore rail coach factory spread over 541 hectares at
Lalganj in Rae Bareli with much fanfare in November 2012, faces of the people in her constituency
had lit up with the hope of upcoming job opportunities and economic prosperity. Little did they know
that their dreams would crash very soon.

The 20 coaches that Sonia agged off that day were presented as products of the Rae Bareli
factory. The reality: they had been brought from Kapurthala (Punjab) about 900km away, and had
only been painted in Rae Bareli. That was not the end of the sham. Each of the 1,500 families
which gave their land for the factory were promised jobs. Only about 150 got them; that too not in
Rae Bareli, but in other places under the Railways' Lucknow Division.

No wonder then that the people of Rae Bareli are totally disenchanted with the Gandhi family. The
effect became clear in the 2012 UP elections when Congress lost all ve assembly seats in the
Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency. "The mother and son come just before the elections and make
empty promises," says a resident of Rae Bareli, hinting at the mood on the ground. A look at the
socio-economic indices over the past two decades tells the story rather vividly.

Rae Bareli, known as the country's VVIP electoral constituency, doesn't in any way resemble an
area cared for by none less than the UPA chairperson herself. That too for a full decade when she
was virtually running the government, even if it was from the backseat. The town wears the look of
a rustic village. It's indeed a joke that the potholed roads which connect the district have been
declared National Highways.

Youngsters of this constituency lament the lack of job opportunities, and most of the industries
once promoted by former prime minister Indira Gandhi have been consigned to the graveyard. As
per the District Industry Centre (DIC) data, in the last 10 years, as many as 855 small and
medium-sized factories, out of the 2,312 in the district, have either closed down or are on
the verge of closure. Of the 12 big ones, six have shut down, rendering about 10,000
workers jobless.

"Villagers whose land was acquired got jobs as trackman in the Coach Factory or as clerks in the
Fursatganj Aviation University," says Raghubir Prasad of Fursatganj. His son, a graduate, now
cleans railway tracks in Kanpur. "Some who refused to pick up jobs as trackman had gone to Delhi
to meet Sonia Gandhi, but failed to see her after waiting for two days," said Ram Sharan, a
graduate, who is among the many who did not accept the 'D' category job.

The voters of Rae Bareli feel that the Congress party's initiatives of bringing industries to the area
have failed to benet the locals. "The ofcers working in the factories come from Lucknow and
Delhi. They are the masters and we are just servants," said Rajesh, a housekeeper at the
Fursatganj academy.

The constituency does not have a university and there is only one government aided
college. The locals feel that in the absence of basic education facilities, those living around these
units cannot get through the premium institutes created in the constituency.

Ajay Agarwal, the BJP candidate against Sonia, points out that Rae Bareli gets just about 10 hours
of power supply while the villages get less than six hours a day. "It is the feudal mindset of the
party that is at work. Mrs Gandhi does not want the people to have access to information,
education and general awareness. The Congress government wants the poor in the area to remain
poor, so that they have their votes intact," he said. "The people here do not want the VVIP tag.
They want jobs, education and other facilities, and they are looking up to Narendra Modi."

No hope for Gandhi family in lok sabha elections from Rae Bareli
The Congress has a stock reply to all the criticism. "The Centre gives hundreds of crores, but the
state government delays the projects due to petty politics. It does not give power to the area. The
les for strengthening roads keep moving in the state secretariat and as a result, the projects slow
down," says Congress spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-no-hope-for-gandhi-family-in-lok-sabha-elections-from-rae-
bareli-1974974