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Amethi is Sonia's, make no mistake!

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

They would give their eye-teeth for a win in Amethi. But Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in that particular constituency is, without exaggeration, invincible.

And that is a fact.

The discovery is of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The result of a study in the constituency which the Congress chief's late husband and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi nurtured to prosperity.

Ministry of home officials told rediff.com that the BJP leadership has been apprised by government sleuths that Sonia Gandhi would defeat its candidate "no matter who it is."

However, the BJP is still searching for somebody who can effectively take on the Congress chief.

According to the probe, Sonia Gandhi is a mighty force in Amethi, where voters have been constantly urging her to contest. Regularly crowding in front of her 10, Janpath residence, the Amethians have assured time and again that her victory will be by a mammoth margin.

Although the Congress's Captain Satish Sharma was defeated from Amethi in the 1998 Lok Sabha poll, it was attributed to the disappointment of the electorate who wanted a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Then, BJP's Sanjay Singh got 35.08 per cent votes; the Congress candidate managed only 3.99 per cent.

The BJP, naturally, was jubilant about the victory. It went about saying that the constituency was no longer a Congress bailiwick.

But politics is volatile -- the BJP has nothing to cheer about Amethi now.

Sanjay Singh, of royal lineage, during his last electoral campaign had promised that he would take Amethi up the development ladder. His victory, however, was not because the voters were swayed by his claim but because Captain Satish Sharma disappointed them.

Sanjay Singh came to power, yes. But in the minds of Amethians he holds no special place. Their affection is reserved only for the Nehru-Gandhi family.

This remarkable loyalty can be understood when one considers what Rajiv Gandhi did for Amethi. When he first contested from there in 1984, he promised the people that he would change their lives. Amethi elected Rajiv by a huge margin. And he lived up to his promise.

When he became prime minister, he extended the Hazira-Bijapur gas pipeline to Jagdishpur, which is an assembly segment of the Amethi parliamentary constituency. The pipeline generated employment and brought in its wake infrastructural facilities. For the first time, the people had drinking water. Roads were constructed. More police stations sprung up. The law and order situation improved.

The Amethians, in short, got a lot to cheer about.

Amethi's development attracted more enterprises. The Indian Telephone Industries set up a unit there. So did the Indian Oil Corporation. Various departments of the Uttar Pradesh government fell over themselves to set up shop in Amethi. More employment opportunities arose.

But Rajiv was not satisfied. Even as he conducted the affairs of the country from his elegant South Block office, he thought of ways to reward his constituency. Job quotas for Amethians cropped up in government departments like the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the New Delhi Municipal Corporation. When some of his constituents complained that the money for their land, on which various industries were set up, was being delayed, Rajiv promptly ensured that they received "heavy compensation."

Following Rajiv's assassination in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, his constituents requested Sonia Gandhi to contest. Thereafter, it was clear that for any member of the Nehru Gandhi family, the poll was no problem from Amethi.

Incidentally, the BJP leadership tried to persuade Maneka Gandhi to contest against her sister-in-law Sonia Gandhi in Amethi. Maneka, who won as an independent candidate from the Pilibhit parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh last time, turned it down. But a section in the BJP still thinks that Maneka would be a good choice...

The sisters-in-law had fallen out after Maneka's husband and Rajiv's younger brother, Sanjay, died in a place crash. Since then, they are not even on talking terms.

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