The Gandhis of Lucknow confused over whom to vote

Voters queue up at a polling station in Lucknow in the third phase of the U.P. Assembly elections on Sunday.

Sonia Gandhi is undecided for whom to vote in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. So are Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi.

Not to be confused with the Nehru-Gandhi family members, these ordinary voters in Lucknow have no link with them. They are just namesakes.

In Lucknow Central, Ms. Sonia Gandhi (40) has to make a choice between Maroof Khan, a Congress rebel and sitting SP MLA Ravidas Mehrotra. Both are in the fray despite the two parties stitching together an alliance.

Mr. Rajiv Gandhi (46) runs a photocopy shop along with his younger brother Mr. Sanjay Gandhi.

Declining to reveal which way he will vote, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi said, “Our family elders short-list candidates and we follow their advice.”

Mr. Rajiv Gandhi is a voter from Lucknow Cantonment, where former UPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, now in BJP, is pitted against Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.

However, Mr. Sanjay Gandhi (45) is a voter from Lucknow Central. Ms. Sonia Gandhi is Mr. Sanjay Gandhi’s wife.

He feels the Congress has no political future in the State without Samajwadi Party support. “So far, Akhilesh seems to have an edge,” he says.

The family of these Gandhis shifted to Lucknow after Partition in 1947.

Polling in Lucknow was held on Sunday along with 10 other districts covering 69 Assembly constituencies that figured in the phase 3 of the staggered polls.