Cong’s not so right choice

n “Experiment Beni” failed as out of over 60 candidates decided by Union minister Beni Prasad Verma in districts like Barabanki,Gonda,Shravasti,Bahraich,Lakhimpur Khiri etc,only one candidate won — from Nanpara.

When Rahul Gandhi spoke on Tuesday that he had learnt a lesson from UP results,which was repeated by his mother Sonia a day later about wrong choice of candidates,each Congressman understood its meaning — failure of the so called “Experiment Beni”.

Union Minister of Steel Beni Prasad Verma was given a free hand in selection of party candidates in on over 60 seats in 10 districts right from Barabanki to Shravasti,Ayodhya and even Sultanpur,presenting him as the OBC face of the party.

While this became the main reason behind Congress MPs showing little interest in their own constituencies and limited themselves to only the seats contested by their relatives,it became obvious that even the Beni factor did not work. Rahul had held his first set of campaign meetings from the area claimed by Beni as his stronghold — Barabanki,Bahraich,Balrampur and Gonda.

Beni not only traveled along with Rahul in all the meetings in this region but also sat next to him on each dais. He was given chance to speak before Rahul and Congressmen were suspended and later expelled in districts like Bahraich for opposing the minister. Senior Congress leaders were not ready to accept the failure to give such importance to Beni despite the fact that he was booed down by the crowd at both Rahul and Sonia’s public meetings.

At Utraula,public had refused to even listen to Rahul till the time Beni was removed from the dais. But so far,supporters of Beni and some of the senior party leaders called this as the “mere resentment among the party cadres”.

However,a close look at the constituencies,where Beni had his say tell a different story. To start with,in his birth place Barabanki,from where his son Rakesh Verma was given party ticket (Dariyabad),Beni failed to collect the crowd even for his son. Rakesh Verma came third with 57,044 votes as winner SP candidate RK Singh collected 84,147 votes.

At Utraula,Congress candidate Ashiq Ali,who was given ticket on the recommendation of Beni came fifth with only 6,365 votes,whereas SP’s Arif Anwar bagged 40,447 votes despite Beni calling it the party of “goons”.

In his own parliamentary constituency Gonda,Congress candidate Rakhuraj Prasad Upadhyay (Gonda Assembly seat) got just 4,332 votes and came fifth against SP’s VK Singh,who secured 62,058 votes. In Mankapur reserved constituency under his Lok Sabha constituency,Congress’s Vijay Kumar Paswan also came fifth with 5,292 votes against SP’s winning candidate Manju Singh,who got 52,395 votes.

In Basti district,where Gaurishankar Kanaujia was given party ticket from Mahadewa reserved constituency on his backing,Congress polled only 7,888 votes as Kanaujia came fourth. Congress district president Anirudh Tripathi said,“Kanaujia was given ticket because of Beni and we saw him on the day of filing nomination. All that we know of him is that he hails from Gujarat and is a businessman there. His forefathers lived in Basti and on that ground he was given ticket. Rest all is in front of you.” The list goes on.

Out of the 28 seats won by Congress,only one candidate of Beni Prasad Verma won — Madhuri Verma from Nanpara assembly seat in Bahraich. Earlier,Beni had assured ticket for her husband Dileep Verma but as Verma could not contest election since he was convicted,the ticket was given to Madhuri,who was sitting BSP MLC. Madhuri won the seat by 4332 votes against BSP’s Waris Ali.

ALL others who failed

The scene was nothing different in the parliamentary constituencies of other Congress MPs. Sixteen out of the 22 MPs could not even ensure victory of a single seat under them. These were Sonia Gandhi,Salman Khurshid,Beni Prasad Verma,Nirmal Khatri,Jitin Prasada,P L Punia,Sanjay Singh,Annu Tandon,Mohammed Azharuddin,Raj Babbar,Pradeep Kumar Jain Aditya,Zafar Ali Naqvi,Praveen Singh Aron,Raja Ram Pal,Jagdambika Pal,Kamal Kishore. They could not ensure victory of Congress candidate in the Assembly seats falling under their constituencies.

While Congress got two seats in Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi,it got one seat each in the parliamentary constituencies of Sriprakash Jaiswal,Vinay Kumar “Vinnu” Pandey,Harsh Vardhan,Ratna Singh and Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh. To top it all,Union Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal could not even own the victory of sitting Congress MLA Ajai Kapoor from Kidwai Nagar because it is open knowledge that Kapoor is rival of Sriprakash in Kanpur.

“We should not be blamed. If we had no say in ticket distribution then why should anyone blame us? It was the same reason why we did not move out,” said a Congress MP. But MPs like Salman Khurshid,Kamal Kishore and Praveen Singh Aron could not even ensure victory for their own wives for whom they were campaigning in the areas day and night.

On the other hand,out of 22 Assembly seats won by the party in 2007 assembly election,they could retain only eight.