Sonia Gandhi dared Mayavati to stop her from coming home to Rae Bareli and said she was ready to go to jail, if necessary, for her constituency.
"We will protest against the cancellation of land allotment. I am ready to go to jail if necessary," a combative Sonia told supporters who had defied prohibitory orders to hear her speak.
Chief minister Mayavati had imposed Section 144 bar on more than four persons gathering in public in most of Lalganj ahead of the Congress president's visit. She also refused Sonia permission to hold a rally, changed the route the Congress leader was to take and turned Rae Bareli Sonia's Lok Sabha constituency into a fortress with heavy police deployment and RAF jawans manning crossings.
But over 1,000 slogan-shouting supporters waited by the roadside near the site of the rail coach factory at Lalganj, in Rae Bareli, that Sonia would have inaugurated if Mayavati would not have cancelled land allotment for the project at the last minute on October 12.
A group of 30 carried a large banner that read: "We want jobs, we want the railway coach factory."
The factory, which would have created 10,000 jobs, is on hold after Mayavati cancelled the land allotment claiming farmers were against it. But farmers went to Allahabad High Court against the government order and obtained a stay on it.
A Congress poster at the site read: "Maya, don't play a Mamata here. Please spare us."
Sonia stopped for about 10 minutes to address the crowd at the Lalganj old market area, and a few more times on her 65km route to Rae Bareli town from Lalganj station where she inaugurated a mobile health service. At least 40km of the route was covered by prohibitory orders, but police looked the other way as residents violated Section 144.
After inaugurating the Lifeline Health Express, Sonia said: "When I planned to come here, I was looking forward to share with you happiness on the inauguration of the railway coach factory. But you know what happened.
"The issue is in court, so I won't comment on it. All I can say is that Rae Bareli and Amethi have been the karmabhoomi of Feroz Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Now it is Rahul's and my karmabhoomi."
The Congress MP added "More than this, Rae Bareli is like my home. Can anyone stop me from coming home? No, they can't."
Mayavati, out to prove that her diktat runs in Sonia's Lok Sabha seat, changed the route the Congress leader was to take to Lalganj, which borders Kanpur. Instead of the Unnao-Kanpur road she normally takes, the Congress leader's convoy had to take a short cut through GT Road. Yet, thousands lined up along the new route as news of the change in plan spread.
Sonia said the rail coach factory was not the only project Mayavati had tried to stop in Rae Bareli. There were at least eight schemes that had been cleared by the Centre but "all the hurdles are here only in Uttar Pradesh", she said.
The police, who could not keep residents from cheering Sonia, cracked down on local Congress leaders. Cases were registered, including under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, against two Congress MLAs Ashok Singh and Shiv Ganesh Lodhi and 34 others. Eight were arrested.
Congress workers had turned violent after Mayavati cancelled the land allotment for the rail coach factory, burning buses and pelting the police with stones. The violence subsided after the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court stayed the cancellation.
After Mayavati in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh today refused Sonia permission to hold a rally in Bhopal.
"The permission was denied by the state government on the plea that Lal Parade Ground is a high-risk area," state Congress president Suresh Pachauri said. Sonia was to hold a rally on October 19 to launch her party's campaign for the November 25 Assembly polls.
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