Rahul Gandhi and his niece, Miraya Vadra, spent hours at the Nehru-Gandhi family’s ancestral home, Anand Bhavan, during the Congress leader’s stay in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj for an event as part of the ‘Chhatron ki Goonj’ student movement against paper leaks, exam irregularities, and rising fees, on August 8. He began his speech at the event by talking about their family home.
Gandhi said that is why coming to Prayagraj always feels special.
Its ally Apna Dal won three. Bahujan Samaj Party won two and the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress one each. Allahabad was a Congress bastion. The number of visitors to Anand Bhavan and adjacent Swaraj Bhavan began declining with the erosion in Congress’s support base. The positive response to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Chhatron ki Goonj’ has raised hopes for the return of Congress’s glory in Prayagraj. This was not the first time when a Congress event attracted a huge crowd despite the roadblocks the state government allegedly put up. The rally’s design and theme were appealing to Gen Z days after student protests forced Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to step down over examination irregularities. Prayagraj has been on top of the BJP’s agenda ahead of the assembly polls due next year. Nehru and Indira Gandhi enjoyed a personal bond with the people of Allahabad. Indira Gandhi, as Congress city president, knew the town like the back of her hand. Even after becoming prime minister, she made it a point to stay in touch with the city’s common folk. She once dropped by the city’s Kamla Nehru Hospital and had a half-an-hour meeting with nurses and midwives. The visits of Gandhis over the years became less frequent.
Seven of Allahabad’s eight members of Parliament were from the Congress from 1952 to 1984. Janeshwar Mishra won the 1977 Lok Sabha polls from Allahabad on a Janata Party ticket. The Congress won the seat in 2024 after four decades. Between 1984 and 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the seat four times, Janata Dal twice, and the Jan Morcha and the Samajwadi Party once each. In 1970, Indira Gandhi handed over the sprawling Anand Bhavan to the government, which converted it into a museum. The Congress lost the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat in a by-poll in 1988 and power in Uttar Pradesh a year later. It was in power at the Centre from 1991 to 1996 and 2004 to 2014, but the party was unable to win it until 2024. In 2017, the BJP won 13 of the 22 seats in the Allahabad region. In 2022, the SP won 10 and the BJP eight. Sonia Gandhi last visited in 2016 for Indira Gandhi’s birth centenary celebrations and met the local leaders.
