Rahul Vs Mayawati: What Their Contrasting Campaigns Reveal
- February 2, 2012
- India News
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Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh: Not far from where BSP chief Mayawati kicked off her hugely successful UP 2012 election campaign on Wednesday, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi held an election meeting a day earlier.
“That ground was smaller. And there weren’t nearly as many people. There is simply no comparison,” said a policeman as he kept a close watch on the seemingly endless stream of people arriving for the Chief Minister’s rally at what is reportedly Sitapur’s largest ground.
When it comes to scale, Mayawati is in a league of her own.
Rahul Gandhi, the big comeback hope of the Congress, doesn’t fare badly on the celebrity quotient, but finds himself in a diametrically opposite position to Mayawati when it comes to prospects in UP, going by the results of the last state assembly elections.
To get a sense of what the earnest Gandhi is up against, consider this: Of the 55 assembly constituencies going to the polls in the first phase on 8 February, the BSP bagged 30 the last time, and the Congress 3.
With the might of numbers behind her, Mayawati walks and talks with the confidence of someone who knows her detractors don’t stand a chance. Rahul, on the other hand, walks and talks with an eagerness of an underdog who knows his opponent is fierce.
And as leaders, they couldn’t be more different.
Arriving to wild cheering and clapping at a rally in Barabanki late on Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi did all he could to blend in with the other speakers on stage.
At one point, he asked his security personnel to turn the halogen lights away from the stage because it was too bright, effectively disappointing the thousands of people gathered there just to catch a glimpse of him. Only after the crowd cried out in disappointment that they were unable to see their leader’s face did he allow the lights to be directed back at himself.
Sitting on a red plastic chair, hands folded, listening intently to what each leader before him had to say, Rahul carries an air of informality that stands in stark contrast to Mayawati.
When Mayawati gets on stage, she is clearly the uncontested star of the event. Nobody else sits with her. She sits alone on her sofa – and everybody else sits in a row behind her. Handbag on the table, comfortably seated, supporters singing her praises, she surveys the sea of people before her. Mayawati personifies power.
It is no wonder that some her supporters at Wednesday’s rally watched her with folded hands. Some of them were almost in tears, and waved frantically as her helicopter disappeared from sight.
At the Barabanki rally, Rahul did all he could to impress the crowd with his claims of his tireless pursuit to bring development to UP, appealing to them to give him a chance. He established a dialogue with his listeners, asking them questions, waiting for them to reply.
That is not Mayawati’s style. She reads out her speech, and is not given to carrying on a conversation. She makes declarations. And the crowd cheers and applauds in agreement. She doesn’t ask questions. She knows.
Having missed each other by a day – Rahul was in Sitapur and Barabanki on Tuesday, Mayawati held rallies in the two districts on Wednesday – the two will descend on Ambedkar Nagar district on Thursday morning. They are bound to clash as they criss-cross the length and breadth of UP during the next one month.
What the impact of this final lap of frenetic campaigning by the two leaders will mean for their respective party’s performance at the hustings remains to be seen.
The result is a signal that all of India is waiting for.
Source: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/rahul-vs-mayawati-what-their-contrasting-campaigns-reveal-200756.html