“We have been supporting the Congress for years,” said Sunita Mujarambe, a shy woman in her 30s, as she hopped off a bus and followed a long line of women towards the massive MMRDA grounds in Mumbai. They had come from all over the city, in hundreds of school buses, despite the dust and heat, to attend Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s big Mumbai rally on Sunday.
Mujarambe, like most of the men and women around her, proudly called herself a Congress karyakarta, although she merely meant that she came from a Congress-supporting neighbourhood. She had plenty to say in praise of the party, but just smiled when asked what Congress representatives had done in her constituency. “Oh nothing much, things are pretty much the way they have always been,” said the resident of a slum in suburban Goregaon. “We’ve come to hear what Soniaji has to say and what the party claims it has done for us,” she said.
Unfortunately for Mujarambe, the rally turned out to be a series of disappointments. Sonia Gandhi did not show up because of health reasons, sending son and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in her stead. The excited announcer had the crowd of about 100,000 people on its toes when he claimed that Rahul would arrive in a helicopter that would land on a special section of the large grounds. Instead, Rahul made a more discreet entry – three hours late.
In those three hours, most of the crowd had grown restless in the hot sun. But the behind-the-scenes bickering about Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congres Party dropping out of the event wasn't evident to the participants on the ground. The leader of the Congress's main ally in Maharashtra, Pawar made a last-minute decision to stay away from the rally when he learnt that Sonia would not attend.
Instead, a slew of local Congress leaders took turns at the dais to keep the audience engaged, with speeches that focused on targeting Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi with colourful insults. They called him a “dadhiwala from Gujarat”, “shaitan on earth” and a “bhagoda” who had run away from his school, his wife and even the tea stall where he worked.
By the time Rahul Gandhi arrived, participants were happy just to get a glimpse of him on the many big screens set up around the ground. But many had walked out of the rally well before he gave his speech. When this reporter shot a few photos of the empty chairs they had left behind, she found herself suddenly surrounded by a group of seven or eight furious Congress workers.
“This is wrong, madam, you cannot take pictures of the empty chairs,” they said. “Delete the photos. You are trying to malign the party image...You are not a journalist, you must be a BJP agent!”
Rahul Gandhi’s short speech, delivered well after sunset, was a rehash of his now-usual attack on the BJP and Modi. He invoked communal tensions, the Adanis and Modi’s “false claims of development in Gujarat”, while crediting the United Progressive Alliance for “lifting 15 crore Indians out of poverty” and building the Mumbai monorail (which critics insist is a boondoggle), the metro (which still hasn't been opened), the Bandra-Worli Sea Link (utilisation of which is far below expectations) and a new terminal at the airport (which is infested with mosquitos).
“The UPA has given everyone the Right to Food, but they [the BJP] don’t even know the meaning of hunger, because they don’t visit the homes of the poor,” said Rahul. “I saw a BJP poster in Delhi talking about empowering women, but there was no woman on the poster.” Each jibe against Modi drew cheers from the few thousand spectators near the stage.
The crowd cheered vigorously when he made a few promises if the Congress gets re-elected in 2014: “We will ensure that the poor will get treatment at all hospitals even if they don’t have the money! We will introduce 2,000 women-only police stations and bring in 33% reservation for women in Parliament. We are developing industrial corridors that will benefit crores of Indians – soon you will see labels that say ‘made in Mumbai’ instead of ‘made in China’!”
To his supporters, these promises really mattered. “I don’t trust or vote for any other party besides the Congress,” said Pushpa Kanojia, a thirty-something housewife from a slum in north Mumbai. “Indira Gandhi waived school fees for many children, and Sonia Gandhi built a 1,000 low-cost flats for the poor in Chembur. I may not have benefited directly from such schemes, but the Congress is all we have”.
Mujarambe, like most of the men and women around her, proudly called herself a Congress karyakarta, although she merely meant that she came from a Congress-supporting neighbourhood. She had plenty to say in praise of the party, but just smiled when asked what Congress representatives had done in her constituency. “Oh nothing much, things are pretty much the way they have always been,” said the resident of a slum in suburban Goregaon. “We’ve come to hear what Soniaji has to say and what the party claims it has done for us,” she said.
Unfortunately for Mujarambe, the rally turned out to be a series of disappointments. Sonia Gandhi did not show up because of health reasons, sending son and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in her stead. The excited announcer had the crowd of about 100,000 people on its toes when he claimed that Rahul would arrive in a helicopter that would land on a special section of the large grounds. Instead, Rahul made a more discreet entry – three hours late.
In those three hours, most of the crowd had grown restless in the hot sun. But the behind-the-scenes bickering about Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congres Party dropping out of the event wasn't evident to the participants on the ground. The leader of the Congress's main ally in Maharashtra, Pawar made a last-minute decision to stay away from the rally when he learnt that Sonia would not attend.
Instead, a slew of local Congress leaders took turns at the dais to keep the audience engaged, with speeches that focused on targeting Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi with colourful insults. They called him a “dadhiwala from Gujarat”, “shaitan on earth” and a “bhagoda” who had run away from his school, his wife and even the tea stall where he worked.
By the time Rahul Gandhi arrived, participants were happy just to get a glimpse of him on the many big screens set up around the ground. But many had walked out of the rally well before he gave his speech. When this reporter shot a few photos of the empty chairs they had left behind, she found herself suddenly surrounded by a group of seven or eight furious Congress workers.
“This is wrong, madam, you cannot take pictures of the empty chairs,” they said. “Delete the photos. You are trying to malign the party image...You are not a journalist, you must be a BJP agent!”
Rahul Gandhi’s short speech, delivered well after sunset, was a rehash of his now-usual attack on the BJP and Modi. He invoked communal tensions, the Adanis and Modi’s “false claims of development in Gujarat”, while crediting the United Progressive Alliance for “lifting 15 crore Indians out of poverty” and building the Mumbai monorail (which critics insist is a boondoggle), the metro (which still hasn't been opened), the Bandra-Worli Sea Link (utilisation of which is far below expectations) and a new terminal at the airport (which is infested with mosquitos).
“The UPA has given everyone the Right to Food, but they [the BJP] don’t even know the meaning of hunger, because they don’t visit the homes of the poor,” said Rahul. “I saw a BJP poster in Delhi talking about empowering women, but there was no woman on the poster.” Each jibe against Modi drew cheers from the few thousand spectators near the stage.
The crowd cheered vigorously when he made a few promises if the Congress gets re-elected in 2014: “We will ensure that the poor will get treatment at all hospitals even if they don’t have the money! We will introduce 2,000 women-only police stations and bring in 33% reservation for women in Parliament. We are developing industrial corridors that will benefit crores of Indians – soon you will see labels that say ‘made in Mumbai’ instead of ‘made in China’!”
To his supporters, these promises really mattered. “I don’t trust or vote for any other party besides the Congress,” said Pushpa Kanojia, a thirty-something housewife from a slum in north Mumbai. “Indira Gandhi waived school fees for many children, and Sonia Gandhi built a 1,000 low-cost flats for the poor in Chembur. I may not have benefited directly from such schemes, but the Congress is all we have”.
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