Whether it was represented by the Congress, the Peace Party, an independent or someone aligned with the BJP, the Rae Bareli (Sadar) seat -- for almost three decades now -- has remained within one family: that of late Akhilesh Singh.
His electoral juggernaut started in 1993, when he won on the Congress ticket. He repeated the performance in 1996 and 2002 also but then his relations with the Congress soured.
The party expelled him, and he fought the 2007 election as an independent, defeating a Congress candidate by 76,603 votes. By the next elections he had joined the Peace Party and won the 2012 polls with 75,588 votes.
According to his 2012 election affidavit, Akhilesh Singh had been accused in eight criminal cases including one case each of murder and extortion, and five of intimidation.
After Singh retired from active politics, his daughter Aditi Singh was elected as the Congress MLA in 2017. Singh died of cancer in August 2019 and his daughter switched to the BJP in November 2021. She sent her resignation letter to the Congress and the Assembly Speaker last month.
This signalled the final severing of ties between the Singh family and the Congress, which had for long been the dominant force in Rae Bareli since the days of Indira Gandhi.
Rae Bareli assembly segment is part of the parliamentary seat held by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Local resident Mayank Agarwal said people want the basic “sadak, bijli, paani” issues resolved they, whether it is just one family that has been in power or several.
“Unfortunately that has not happened. Roads are still damaged and traffic increasing due to encroachments and parking issues. Power outages for four or five hours, particularly during the summers, are still prevalent despite promises by MLAs and MPs,” the 30-year-old said.
Last week, Aditi Singh (34) made an emotional appeal to voters, launching on social media a short documentary of her father, focusing on his "rich legacy", in a bid to win a second term for herself and the first for the BJP from the seat.
During the past few weeks, while she had declared allegiance to the BJP, technically the seat didn’t shift to that party.
"His relation with people was such that no equation could cut him off from people. Whichever party had a wave in UP, Rae Bareli would choose Akhilesh Singh only," the documentary says.
The only party that Rae Bareli (Sadar) has never supported is the Samajwadi Party. This time, it has fielded R P Yadav, a grassroot party worker, against Aditi Singh, hoping to break the Singh family stranglehold on the constituency.
The Samajwadi Party dubbed Akhilesh Singh's time in power as a "legacy tainted and mired in crime" and claimed the SP would take the seat out of the family clutches in this election.
The Congress too has launched an all-out campaign against Aditi Singh, calling her a betrayer. It has fielded Manish Chauhan, an eminent doctor with political lineage in the city.
SP’s Rae Bareli president Veerendra Yadav claimed that Rae Bareli (Sadar) has not developed despite being the district headquarters in all these years. He said city roads are broken, villages have road connectivity problems, poor localities do not get clean drinking water and health care infrastructure is not up to the mark even today.
"Development is not possible when right public representatives are not elected," he told PTI.
"The father of the current MLA was also the MLA for 25 years. They did not do development work. They only looted Rae Bareli. They had a gang engaged in extortion. They only developed themselves and some of their supporters," Yadav alleged.
He noted that having an MLA from a different party than which has government in the state impacts growth prospects of any constituency and that has also happened with Rae Bareli.
"Rae Bareli (Sadar) is the only seat in UP where a Samajwadi Party candidate has never won an election. But this time, it is going to happen. The Samajwadi Party candidate will win," he said.
Rae Bareli Congress president Pankaj Tiwari said his party has always had a dominance in the Sadar seat.
"The people of the district have affection for Sonia ji, Priyanka ji and Rahul ji and consider them their family members and they also consider people of Rae Bareli as their family members," Tiwari told PTI.
He claimed Aditi Singh is now already engaged in a fight within the BJP and accused her of betraying the Congress by joining the ruling party for personal gains.
"The people of Rae Bareli are angry. She betrayed them. She had won on the Congress symbol. Party workers had also worked hard to ensure her victory. Now we have Manish Chauhan, a simple man who has been with the people of the constituency all the time. He will win," Tiwari said.
He said development work for Rae Bareli has been done only by the Congress right from the times of Indira Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi.
"The Congress has not been in power in UP for the last 32 years. But Sonia Gandhi is the Lok Sabha MP from Rae Bareli and ensured some development," he said, citing projects like AIIMS and modern rail coach factory in the district.
In her election speech, Sonia Gandhi had on Monday slammed the BJP for meting out "step motherly" treatment to her constituency.
During the virtual address, Gandhi had also urged the people of Rae Bareli to vote for Congress candidates to ensure development.
