Maya mars mom-son party in Aonla

UP chief minister Mayawati spoilt the fun for Varun and his mom Maneka Gandhi on Mother’s Day.

The son was supposed to campaign for his mother, the BJP candidate, here on Sunday. But the Dalit deity saw a possible threat to law and order and the district authorities promptly cancelled permission for the rally granted five days earlier.

The mother and son are now crying blue murder. “Mayawati knows she is losing badly in this election... this decision reeks of political vendetta,” Maneka said after the rally was cancelled. Varun has campaigned for her and the question everyone here is asking is: “Will the son ensure victory for the mother?”

Five-time MP from neighbouring Pilibhit, Maneka knows how to work the anti-incumbency factor and is now using the issue to browbeat her main rival BSP candidate and three-time Aonla MP Kunwar Sarvaraj Singh.

But anti-incumbency is not the issue here. If development is the core issue in any constituency in UP, Aonla would be the one. Cynical psephologists who rave and rant endlessly about the lack of focus on development in elections should visit Aonla to see how Maneka has put it on top of the electoral agenda.

“Maneka Gandhi vikas ki aandhi,” is a slogan which echoes here. Even Muslims, patently considered anti-BJP, believe that Maneka could change the face of this utterly under-developed and backward area. “Maneka has made a difference in Pilibhit (which she has left for son Varun this time). We have seen development there. I am sure she will continue the good work here, too,” says a frail Mehboob Ali, 70, resident of Faridpur.

Senior journalist Rakesh Mathuria points out that Aonla was once the prosperous capital of the Rohilkhand region. “Today, there is no highway or rail link, no technical education, no healthcare or good hospital, poor transport, power cuts. It’s perhaps the worst part of UP,” he says. “So, people here feel someone like Maneka can change things.”

Maneka seems to read the pulse well. In her short and terse speeches, she talks only about development - in fact, the lack of it - and uses the issue to underline the failures of Sarvaraj Singh, who has represented this seat thrice. She never names him. But the impact of her statements is not lost on her audience.

“Aap dharm aur jaati par dhyan na dein, sirf apne kshetra ke vikas ke liye vote dijiye,” she says at an election meeting. (Do not look at caste or community. Just vote for the development of your region.) Maneka would be one of the rare BJP candidates who find acceptability even among Muslims.

In stark contrast to Varun, Maneka never rakes up any communal issues. No Ram temple and no ‘Hindutva’ despite that Aonla has become Muslim-dominated after the addition of a new assembly segment Shekhupura which was hitherto part of neighbouring Budaun.  She hits the raw nerve when she blames the Mayawati government for “failure and corruption” in wheat procurement. Everybody in the audience nods in agreement as she says: “Farmers are forced to sell their wheat cheaply to middlemen because of corrupt officials.”

She tells people how she called up the district magistrate and got another wheat purchase centre somewhere. “If you have any complaints about any official, you report it directly to me. You take down this mobile number,” she says and then announces the number. It is this accessibility which is her potent weapon.