Rahul's bike ride fails to impress voters

New Delhi: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s pre-dawn bike ride to Bhatta-Parsaul – the epicentre of last year’s farmer agitation against Mayawati government’s land acquisition policy — doesn’t seem to have done the trick with the voters in Jewar, the assembly seat where the twin villages are located. The BSP is leading in the assembly constituency which was pegged as the battleground between the young prince and the reigning queen. [caption id=“attachment_235369” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“In Jewar, things don’t seem to have gone as planned for the Congress candidate, reported to be the young prince’s blue-eyed boy. Reuters”]  [/caption] Dhirendra Singh, the Congress candidate from Jewar, is faced with a shock defeat, with early trends giving BSP’s Ved Ram Bhati the lead. Given  agitation by the farmers against the BSP government, which saw violent clashes between them and the police, and even cases of rape being filed against the police by the women from Bhatta-Parsual, the victory for Rahul was expected to be guaranteed. But things don’t seem to have gone as planned for the Congress candidate Dhirendra Singh, who is reported to be Rahul Gandhi’s blue-eyed boy. With the BJP having made surprisingly massive inroads in western Uttar Pradesh, which was dominated by blue in the last election, results haven’t gone according to script either for the Congress or the BSP.