Opposition capitalise on discontent in Amethi in elections

Описание: (6 May 2014) The 2014 elections will be key to the future of the Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty that has ruled India for much of its post-independence history.
The dynastic Indian National Congress party's scion Rahul Gandhi is seeking re-election for a third term in his Amethi parliamentary seat, one his family has held for more than three decades.
However polls suggest the Congress party could face its worst drubbing ever this year - a result of corruption scandals and an economic slowdown marking ten years of their rule.
The 43 year-old lawmaker Rahul Gandhi is part of a family line of ruling Indian elite that includes grandmother Indira Gandhi and his career embodies the party's reliance on the Gandhi family name.
He won the Amethi seat in the 2004 and 2009 elections by huge margins.
"We have a family-like relationship with Amethi, we will get a good victory here," Gandhi told the crowds in Amethi after filing his nomination papers.
This is where the Gandhi family's support has its base - in India's rural hinterland where the country's poorest live.
55 year-old farmer Krishan Kumar Yadav has lived in Amethi all his life. He earns approximately 2-3 US dollars from a normal day's work.
A Congress party loyalist, Yadav says his parents used to vote for them, and he hopes his four children will as well.
"If it wasn't for Rahul, Amethi would have been destroyed," he said. "It would be finished. No one would bother about Amethi. Everything that has happened here has happened only because of Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party."
But critics say the Gandhi family heir has failed to connect with much of the electorate.
His main opposition comes in the guise of Smriti Irani, the candidate from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
She is challenging Gandhi in his family's stronghold and blames her opponent for lack of development in the area.
As she arrived to address a group of villagers late into the night, the former popular television actress was greeted with loud cheers.
She says the new generation in Amethi is "not beholden to a family name".
"Though it has been a Gandhi bastion, this should have been nothing short of a heaven, given that sixty years they have ruled here. And I've never found heaven to have pot holes," the 38 year-old Irani said.
Many young, first-time voters say Gandhi has not fulfilled his promise of increasing jobs and improving infrastructure in Amethi.
Vinay Kumar Misra, an 18 year-old student in Amethi, wants change now - and isn't phased by the Gandhi family name.
"If he had developed Amethi, there would have been a popularity wave in favour of him, but that is not the case now," he said.
The challenge to the dynastic politics of the Congress party is coming from an aggressive and vocal opposition.
Among them is the upstart Aam Aadmi Party, or the Common Man's Party, which was born out of widespread public anger over government corruption.
But it's the BJP, a pro-business, Hindu nationalist bloc led by Narendra Modi, that has the momentum heading into the elections.
They are promising good governance to counter the ruling Congress party that has been plagued by repeated scandals.
Many pollsters are predicting that the BJP will likely emerge with the largest number of seats in the elections when results are announced on May 16.
"The Gandhi dynasty is certainly on its way down," said political analyst Sharad Pradhan. "It is already, it's the writing on the wall. And the way things are at the moment, the election results on May 16 will tell you very clearly, where the Congress remains."
Amethi goes to the polls on May 7.

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