Give us five yrs, we will undo the damage of 22 yrs: Rahul

Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, wearing a black sweater, and looking only slightly tired from what must have been a hectic day of campaigning, arrived to a rockstar’s reception as he rode on his minibus into an election rally – his fourth for the day – in Barabanki district.
Arriving almost three hours after schedule, Rahul Gandhi‘s last stop was a much bigger rally in Dariyabad — the assembly constituency being contested by Rakesh Verma, son of Gonda Congress MP and Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma, a key strategist for the Congress in the region.
Barabanki is one of the 10 districts set to go to polls in the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections on 8 February. The Congress has a tough battle to fight in these 10 districts; it only won 3 of the 55 constituencies last time.
Having arrived to rousing welcome to the rally of about 5,000 people, Rahul Gandhi was joined on stage by Barabanki Lok Sabha member PL Punia, Union Minister Beni Prasad, a prominent Congress politician, Salim Iqbal Shervani – representing the respectively the Dalit, Kurmi and Muslim face of the party.

"Till your leaders don’t talk to you, come to your houses, eat with you and drink from your well, UP will not change." Naresh Sharma/Firstpost

Referring to Beni Prasad as ‘babuji‘, the party workers wearing Congress party flags and hats seemed to swear by his ability to win elections. “The Congress candidates have been handpicked by babuji. The Kurmi vote is guaranteed to him. The BSP has no chance this time,” said first-time voter and youth Congress member Anuj Kumar Verma.
Telling the crowd that BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign was inspired by a line borrowed from a television commercial, Rahul Gandhi credited the Congress victory in 2004 and in 2009 to engaging with the poor and the dispossessed.
He didn’t desist from his, by now familiar, attack on the BSP. “The elephant has eaten up the money we sent from the Centre for the poor, the farmers, and the labourers… After the people of UP punctured the cycle, (referring to the Samajwadi Party whose party symbol is the cycle) in 2007, the elephant came. Now this elephant eats the money of the poor.”
Taking a shot at Samajwadi Party, he said, “On one hand, you have the cycle and on the other there is the elephant. For the last 22 years, sometimes it is the elephant which eats money or it is the cycle that gets punctured.”
Having emphasised the Congress’ role in everything from nationalisation of banks to NREGA to right to education to the package for Bundelkand, he appealed to the crowd to give Congress a chance in UP. “I am not here to make promises. UP needs development. You have the power. Give us five years. You’ve given 22 years to these people. We will change this place.”
Concluding his speech with an emotional appeal he said, “Till your leaders don’t talk to you, come to your houses, eat with you and drink from your well, UP will not change. I have come here today to stand with you, to understand you, to fight with you. Rahul Gandhi will not make 50 promises but will fight with you. I will not stand back till the government of the poor doesn’t come to power.”