Akhilesh Singh has held political sway over Rae Bareli, the Gandhi bastion in Uttar Pradesh, for 25 years, progressing over the past decade from the family’s chief facilitator to its principal opponent. A generous benefactor to his constituents and a bahubali (strongman) to his critics, he has remained at the heart of this district’s politics.
Now, seriously ill, he has passed the baton to his 29-year-old daughter, Aditi Singh; she is contesting the Rae Bareli Sadar Assembly seat this time — the seat Mr. Singh won thrice on the Congress symbol, once as an Independent and most recently, on the Peace Party ticket.
The facilitator for Ms. Singh’s entry into the Congress? Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, whom she describes as a “youth icon”.
Educated in Mussoorie and Delhi and in the U.S. at Duke University, where she acquired a Master’s in Management Studies, and with the hint of an American accent, Ms. Singh has spent the past two years tramping through Rae Bareli’s bylanes, and bumping down its dusty village roads to its furthest corners.
Today, the tall young woman, a dupatta modestly draped over her head, sunshades in place, bitiya (daughter) to her constituents, is a familiar sight here. If her father’s name is her calling card, her election plank is to fix the basics — roads, water, electricity — the “unglamorous” part of politics, as she phrases it. At each stop, she spends a few minutes talking about her background before asking people about their problems, noting them before moving on.
When I catch up with her, she is taking a break at her desk, papers piled up high. Flanking it is a glass-fronted cupboard full of neatly labelled files on education, health and local issues that need attention. A white board on the wall lists her schedule for the week.
Love-hate relationship
If Ms. Singh’s office is any indication, her politics is likely to be very different from that of her father’s. When I met him five years ago, his office held a table, some dusty chairs and a luminous Subhas Chandra Bose — in his Congress avatar — looking down from one wall. In his version of the freedom struggle, Bose was the hero, Jinnah, Ambedkar, Lohia the supporting cast, and Gandhi and Nehru the villains.
Akhilesh and his brother, Ashok Singh, were both once in the Congress as was their father, Dhunni Singh, an influential zamindar. The political lives of the Gandhis and Singhs remained intertwined for decades, with Indira Gandhi often visiting their house to meet Dhunni Singh. But the Singhs, who started out as “opinion makers” and “facilitators”, ended up as antagonists.
Now, Ms. Singh is returning to the family’s roots in the Congress because she likes its “inclusive politics” . Her first cousin, Manish Singh, is however contesting on the BSP ticket from a neighbouring constituency.
Unembarrassed about her father’s image of being the local strongman, she says: “That’s just a tag. The fact is the poor love him. You can’t get elected five times without people’s support.”
The Lok Sabha seat here may be the uncontested preserve of the Gandhi family, local Congressmen say. But the man who plays a pivotal role in all the other elections here is Akhilesh Singh, they add.
So much so, that the Congress is confident that this is one seat that is already theirs. Dynasty does help.
