Sonia makes last-ditch appeal to Indian voters

INDIA: Ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi appealed to voters in India’s largest state to stand by the party of “every Indian” ahead of month-long local polls set to begin Saturday.

But the last-minute appeal is likely to have little effect across Uttar Pradesh, where as many as 50 million are expected to vote for 403 seats.

The state has seen campaigning from a cast of colourful characters that include a feisty woman from India’s untouchable classes and a former wrestler.

Gandhi reminded a crowd of some 5,000 Congress stalwarts of the party’s history in the independence struggle and asked them not to cede to the caste-based claims of her opponents.

“I want to remind you that the Congress was every Indian’s party then and is still every Indian’s party today,” said the Italian-born Gandhi, emphasising the word “every,” as she spoke in the blazing heat.

But Congress now has very little support in the northern state, where it has been wiped out in the last 15 years, except in pockets like this rundown former mill town.

Two of the paltry 25 seats that the party won in state polls five years ago were in this city.

Meanwhile, parties that appeal to untouchables or Dalits as they are now known at the bottom of the caste system and “other backward class” Hindus have forged ahead across the state.

“You have to decide whether you want parties that divide the people among themselves to form the next government or a government that takes everyone forward together,” she said in fluent but accented Hindi.

The ten-minute speech met with polite clapping from the motley crowd rounded up by party workers from some of the city’s poorer sections and ferried to the dusty Moti Jheel park where red and white plastic chairs had been laid out.

Analysts say lower-caste groups who have come to have a greater sense of entitlement since an affirmative action programme was put into place for them 15 years ago feel the party does not live up to its talk of inclusiveness.

“Of the top 20 Congress leaders in Uttar Pradesh, 18 or at least 16 would be Brahmins,” from the top of the Hindu chain, said Sanjay Kumar, a fellow with the New Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

“They have not been able to accommodate Dalits or lower castes in top positions.”

Even the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), known for wooing Brahmins, has done better, he said.

Gandhi has tried to turn the focus to development, accusing Samajwadi Party chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former wrestler voted to power by his large Yadav caste and Muslims, of developing only one town his own.

But even with the charges laid at Yadav’s door lining his pockets, allowing a law-and-order breakdown his re-election bid faces little threat from the Congress.

Recent polls show Yadav running neck-and-neck with Mayawati Kumari, a woman from India’s untouchable classes who now leads the Dalit-based Bahujan Samaj Party, and who has expressed hopes of becoming India’s first Dalit prime minister.

The sway of regional parties in the Hindi-speaking heartland has meant the general decline of national parties in India and the rise of coalition politics with no party able to muster a majority without help.

Kanpur, Friday, AFP