The Hindu : National / Elections 2004 : Tough for Girija Vyas to stay afloat in City of Lakes?

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Sunday, May 02, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Tough for Girija Vyas to stay afloat in City of Lakes?

Gargi Parsai

UDAIPUR

After a full day of campaigning in rural areas, Girija Vyas, the sitting Congress MP from Udaipur, is out once again at 11 pm — this time to attend two weddings in this city of lakes. She is scheduled to hit the campaign trail the following morning at 6 am. She is not unused to keeping such rigorous schedules, but this time she simply cannot afford to let up. Her rival, the BJP's Kiran Maheshwari, the former president of the municipal council, is no pushover.

The presence of three women candidates in Udaipur has lent the contest an interesting twist. Ms. Vyas, the former Rajasthan Pradesh Congress chief and Union Minister, is the only woman the Congress has fielded in the State. In contrast, Ms. Maheshwari is one of the five women the BJP has fielded in Rajasthan. The Bahujan Samaj Party is in the fray for the first time having fielded Sunita Gujjar, the third woman candidate. She may not reap many votes, but she has the capacity to nibble at some that would have otherwise gone to the Congress.

The presence of three women in the fray has not, as one may have expected, turned the focus on women's issues. But this is perhaps not surprising in a State where it is generally believed that women vote as they are told to by the male members of the family. Of the three, only Ms. Vyas has a record of having done something for women during her tenure as a Minister in the centre, work that includes opening anganwadis, chetna kendras and building toilets in rural areas. Speaking to The Hindu here, she claimed it was her behest that the then Rajasthan Government started a Rs. 100 crore World Bank-funded poverty eradication programme in the Rajsamund Assembly segment. She proposes to launch economic empowerment programmes for her constituency with a special focus on women's health and education. Ms. Vyas attacks the BJP on a number of fronts: unemployment, the rising prices of commodities in the last three months and the "non-fulfillment" of promises made to farmers and Government employees during the recent Assembly elections and lack of (drought) relief work.

She could stand to gain electorally from the belief in rural areas that the State BJP has failed in doing sufficient drought relief work to die over the difficult period over the last three years. Says Kanna Meghawat of Medhta village: "Once the BJP people took our vote in the Assembly election, they have not come back to see how we are doing. Earlier relief works used to provide part food and part cash. Now we have nothing."

In the Assembly elections, the BJP had won seven of the eight Assembly seats constituting the Udaipur Lok Sabha including Udaipur city and rural, Mawli, Vallabhnagar, Rajsamundh, Bheem and Kumbalgarh.

The Congress could bag only Nathadwara. Ms. Vyas, who won the 1999 Lok Sabha election by 54,000 votes against Shantilal Chaplod (BJP), had won before in 1991 and 1996 1999 and lost once in 1998.

Although the Congress has won over the rebels who had damaged the party's performance in the Assembly election, the BJP's cadre base, its strength in the city and its choice of a woman candidate ensures that the contest will be a tough fight. Ms. Vyas' strength lies in rural areas but even her supporters concede that parts of Vallabhnagar, Rajsamund and Kumbalgarh remain "vulnerable".

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