Heir above UP ground

In Sitapur, once a key cultural centre and the gateway to the Avadh region of UP, the Congress ticket was given at the last minute to the Cambridge-educated aristocratic astronomer, Amir Ahmed Khan, the Raja of Mehmoodabad. The move led to considerable heartburn among old Congressmen in the constituency, with veteran Ammar Rizvi (who had fought the seat in 1999 and lost badly) quitting the Congress and joining the BJP in protest.

But while Rizvi’s friends in Lucknow rail against the Congress high command’s decision to field ‘‘Raja Saheb’’ (who became an MLA from Mehmoodabad in 1985 and abandoned politics after Rajiv Gandhi’s death), the picture is very different in Sitapur (earlier in the news only because Babloo Srivastava was contesting the seat from jail).

The choice of ‘‘Raja Saheb’’ seems to have put new life into the moribund Congress appparatus — half-dozen Tata Safaris bearing the Congress flag crisscross the narrow bylanes of the dusty town; Congress posters with a beaming Raja and the Gandhis stare down from the walls; and the ‘royal family’’ (including wife Vijay and niece Sakina) have taken over the campaign, while the candidate goes into interior villages where his lineage still draws affection and awe.

Amir Khan faced a fair share of controversy when he first became MLA because his father had been a close associate of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and one of the prime backers of the Muslim League in UP. Ten years after Partition, he made the move to Pakistan though his wife and son retained their Indian citizenship. Following the 1965 war, the vast estates of the erstwhile princely state was declared ‘‘enemy property’’ and the case continues to drag on in the courts.

When he was sworn in as MLA, questions were raised over his links with Pakistan. He established his Indian identity then, but that didn’t stop opponents from raising the issue once again when he filed his nomination papers this time. Another accusation against him is that he spends most of his time in the UK — he received a mathematical tripos from Imperial College, London and has a doctorate in astronomy from Cambridge. It is a charge his family firmly deny, though they admit that he was ‘‘persuaded’’ to fight the polls (presumably by Sonia Gandhi) and did not seek a ticket himself.

Like the Raja, Ram Lal Rahi is also a known figure in Misrikh, which he won four times with big margins in 1977, 1980, 1989 and 1991. But his fortunes declined with that of the party, and his son preferred to contest the Assembly polls first as an SP and then BSP candidate. It is an indication of the changed situation that son Ramesh Rahi has recently switched to the Congress and is actively campaigning for his father.

Their personal stature notwithstanding, Raja Saheb and Ram Lal Rahi both know that their real hope lies in the Rahul roadshow slated for May 2. But even that hope is tempered with a dose of reality. As a senior AICC leader in Sitapur said: ‘‘The Congress structure is in shambles here. At best, we can move up from the fourth position to perhaps number two.’’