The Congress appears in tatters in Rae Bareli, which the party has been nurturing for 70 years.

As the five Assembly segments that make up the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, represented by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vote on Wednesday in the fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, the general sentiment of the residents is that they have been ignored by the younger generation of the Gandhis.

While locals of the five seats — Rae Bareli Sadar, Bachchrawan, Harchandpur, Sareni and Unchahar — don’t harbour ill-will towards Sonia for staying away as she has not been keeping well, they think Rahul Gandhi shouldn’t have left the burden of the entire campaign on the shoulders of his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

“She is party general secretary and campaigned extensively in Rae Bareli last week. But we all know that her decision to induct Aditi Singh into the party in 2017 and field her from Sadar (city) has almost finished the Congress here. Right from the day she was elected Congress MLA, she had worked towards damaging the future of the party here,” said Ram Bahadur Singh, a resident of Rae Bareli city.

Saurabh Chandra Trivedi, a trader in Harchandpur, said: “We believe Rahul was against fielding Rakesh Singh from Harchandpur in 2017 but Priyanka made him the candidate. He too began working against the Congress from the very first day. Despite being a Congress MLA, he had been collaborating with the BJP for long. Both Aditi and Rakesh wield influence in Unchahar, Bachchrawan and Sareni too. The Congress had won two seats in 2017 but appears set to lose all five this time.”

Aditi and Rakesh officially switched to the BJP before the Uttar Pradesh elections and have got tickets to contest from their seats.

Feroze Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka’s grandfather, represented the Rae Bareli parliamentary seat in 1952 and 1957. Indira Gandhi was elected MP from there in 1967, 1971 and 1980.

“Feroze Gandhi used to live in Rae Bareli and his doors were open for everyone from the area. So was the case with Indira. There was a time when Rae Bareli residents were considered VIPs in New Delhi. There were standing orders to Congress leaders to make all arrangements for stay and food to whoever from Rae Bareli visited Delhi. Even as Prime Minister, Indira would meet them personally and enquire about their needs,” said Shiv Manohar Pandey, a veteran journalist in Rae Bareli.

“Sonia had tried to somehow maintain that proximity but Rahul and Priyanka have always kept a certain distance with the local people,” he added.

“While most senior leaders of the BJP, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, including Amit Shah, Akhilesh Yadav and Satish Chandra Mishra, campaigned here, Rahul didn’t come even once. Priyanka was here last week but gave no commitment on the possibility of a future association with Rae Bareli. Such statements send a wrong message to the voters,” Pandey said.

Priyanka had told local reporters last week that it would “depend on the future situation” whether she would “take over the mantle of Rae Bareli” from her mother.

“The Nehru-Gandhi family doesn’t care about Rae Bareli anymore. Around 30 people died in a train accident in Bachchrawan in March 2015 and 25 workers of the NTPC were killed in Unchahar in an accident in a boiler in November 2017. None from the family came,” Pandey said.

Aditi is daughter of Akhilesh Kumar Singh, a criminal-turned politician who had won the Sadar seat in 1993, 1996 and 2002 as a Congress member. After he was suspended from the Congress for anti-party activities, he won in 2007 as an Independent and in 2012 as a Peace Party of India candidate.

While Priyanka had organised a dharna against him in 2007 for using foul language against Sonia, the Congress general secretary shocked many by inducting his daughter into the party in 2017.

“We had also complained to Priyanka about Rakesh Singh for not doing anything for the area and often misbehaving with voters. Still she fielded him from Harchandpur in 2017. After winning, he started romancing the BJP,” said Tivedi, the trader.

As the Congress fades in Rae Bareli, most people believe the contest is between the BJP and the SP in all five seats.

“However, I don’t rule out the Congress and the BSP making some gains because of infighting in the BJP and the SP in places where those denied tickets are working against their own party,” said Shailesh Kumar Singh, a postgraduate student in Rae Bareli.

“Ram Lal Akela, an important Dalit leader, had won from Bachchrawan on an SP ticket in 2012 but Akhilesh Yadav turned down his wish to contest and nominated Shyam Sundar Bharati this time. Furious, Akela joined the BJP early this month and is campaigning for Apna Dal-BJP joint candidate Laxmikant Rawat, who is not a well-known leader of the area,” said Prabal Pratap, a farmer in Rae Bareli.

“In Harchandpur, Surendra Vikram Singh alias Punjabi Singh, the SP MLA in 2012, is contesting on a Congress ticket. He is harming the SP. Atul Singh, a senior BJP leader from Unchahar, was denied a ticket and is contesting from the Congress. Aditi and Rakesh, sitting MLAs from Rae Bareli Sadar and Harchandpur, have already damaged the Congress and are contesting on BJP tickets. These and many other leaders have been disturbing the political equations,” Pratap added.

“When Usha Dwivedi, a BJP leader, was denied a ticket from Sareni, she joined the Congress and is contesting from there,” Pratap said.