With the Congress deciding at the eleventh hour to nominate Rahul Gandhi from the family bastion Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh — a constituency nurtured since well before Independence by Jawaharlal Nehru — comparisons are bound to happen with another Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh. How much have Raebareli and Varanasi — just 240 kilometres apart — transformed in 75 years of being a Gandhi bastion and 10 years of being Narendra Modi’s constituency, respectively?
While Raebareli’s Fursatganj Airfield is an under-construction domestic airport that only handles unscheduled chartered flights, Varanasi’s Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport handles international ones. Even during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime, in its chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s constituency, the National Institute of Fashion Technology had no building till 2012, even though it opened in 2007. In around 75 years, Raebareli couldn’t get an AIIMS. However, Varanasi’s Institute of Medical Sciences was upgraded to AIIMS status in 2018. The same year, the Gandhi family’s Raebareli received its first AIIMS, with a Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre.
But the tale of these two cities isn’t all black and white but has shades of grey too. Raebareli had its share of economic boom, which eventually gave way to a semi-rural constituency that didn’t have proper roads by 2014 and even now does not have a single three-star hotel, forget about a five-star one.
Here’s a look at the pace of development in these two VIP seats and how they fare now.
Rise and fall of Raebareli
Raebareli wasn’t always the forced-to-be-non-aspirational, resigned-to-fate constituency that it appears to be after Sonia Gandhi’s four consecutive wins. It was the economic driving force of Uttar Pradesh during Nehru, Feroze, and Indira Gandhi’s terms. The tryst between the family and Raebareli started way before Independence, in 1921, when Nehru visited the area after many peasants were killed in cold blood for revolting. Nehru established a bond with the place that he nurtured ever since. While both threw their political might to make Raebareli a powerful constituency, Indira Gandhi is still locally credited for making it an economic powerhouse.
If Feroze Gandhi built the Feroze Gandhi College in 1960, Indira Gandhi ushered in the NTPC, Indian Telephone Industries, and Fursatganj Airport (where her Grandson Rahul Gandhi’s fight landed on Friday before he ventured out to file nomination) among other developments that created jobs and brought economic heft to the area. But all that changed as soon as Indira was gone. The VVIP visits reduced drastically, factories began to shut down, and development started evaporating.
For example, the Indian Telephone Industries building is just a landmark today with the country having 1.15 billion mobile phone connections. Fursatganj is just an airfield now, which the Centre recently started to upgrade into a domestic airport. The National Institute of Fashion Technology functioned without its own building for almost five years, when the Congress was at the Centre. The campus finally became functional in 2012.
If Indira took Raebareli to the roads of development, the last 20 years saw it return to the bylanes of near deprivation. Dariyapur Sugar Mill, Modi Carpets, Seena Textiles, Upcon Cables — a whole array of factories started by Indira Gandhi shut down in Raebareli, one after another.
Just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, this reporter visited Amethi and Raebareli. The potholed and chipped-off Maharajganj-Haidergarh road was evidence of the neglect this VIP seat bore. A once buzzing business hub was fighting for “bijli-pani-sadak”.
Varanasi in 10 years: From dinghy to cruise
In 2014, the BJP announced its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi would fight the Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi — an ancient city known for its Ghats, the Ganga, and narrow bylanes. As Murli Manohar Joshi, its then MP, made way for Modi, the city’s mysticism was getting ready to marry modernity.
Whenever we talk about Varanasi, we talk about the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor. Weathering criticism, PM Modi implemented a grand corridor from the river to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, replacing the serpentine alleys. In the last 10 years, Varanasi also witnessed the redevelopment of Kameshwar Mahadev, Raj Mandir, Lal Bhairav, and Dashashwamedh among others. As a result, more than 13 crore tourists visited Varanasi in just two years, 2022 and 2023. To put things into perspective, Varanasi’s tourist footfall was eight times that of Goa in 2022.
But Kashi, as Varanasi is better known, is more than spirituality. In the last 10 years, it has received the Kashi Integrated Command and Control Centre, a sports stadium at Sigra, a brand new and extensive tourist facility, and a market at Dashashwamedh Ghat, among many big-ticket development projects.
But beyond the macros, the micros too were transformed with CCTV cameras set up in 720 locations, underground parking facilities, improvement of 34 roads, heritage lighting with 4,700 poles, etc, have come up in Varanasi in just the last decade.
Also, 1.38 lakh residents of Varanasi were provided toilets, while 280 community toilets, 12 cremation grounds, 14 panchayat buildings, and 386 benches were set up, adding to the micro development of the VIP city.
Modi’s Varanasi constructed inland waterways, opening up to cargo transport from West Bengal, tourists, and luxury cruise vessels.
Even as Raebareli’s Fursatganj waits for domestic commercial flights to land, Varanasi International Airport received a new ATC, 2MW solar power plant, runway expansion for Boeing 777 aircraft and apron expansion to deal with growing air traffic on this route.
As Rahul Gandhi starts campaigning from Raebareli on Friday, he is bound to face locals who would either compare the state of the city today with his grandmother’s times, or Modi’s Varanasi.
Check Lok Sabha Election 2024 Phase 3 Schedule, Key Candidates And Constituencies At News18 Website.
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