Word: amethi
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...from its exercise of democracy. Indira Gandhi ran on the slogan "Garibi Hatao" (Abolish Poverty) in 1971. Her Congress Party, led by her daughter-in-law Sonia and grandson Rahul, is promising the same thing 38 years later, though less poetically ("Inclusive Growth"). And yet in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the two constituencies that the Gandhi family has represented almost without interruption, literacy is below the national average, less than 40% of villages have electricity and most of the roads are unpaved. The Congress Party isn't alone in its failures. In this election, every party, including the Hindu nationalist...
...scene that has been repeated about 20 times in the past hour, and has at times threatened to bring the Congress Party election campaign to a complete halt as it crawls across the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, from Rahul's constituency of Amethi into Sonia's neighboring seat of Rae Bareli. Sonia has abandoned her own car after marigolds clogged the fan belt, and Rahul has lost a signet ring and some skin off his carelessly outstretched right hand. "This is chaos, chaos," mutters Sonia, peering at the windshield smeared with sweat and crushed petals. "Just stay...
Sonia's aloofness has helped make her a formidable and somewhat unfathomable figure. She assiduously tended Rajiv's constituency in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh state, but apparently disliked politics. Though a naturalized Indian citizen ! since 1983, she is Italian by birth, and almost certainly would have faced strong opposition on that ground alone...
...million voters taking part, the balloting was the biggest democratic exercise in world history -- and the bloodiest and most contemptible ever held in India. At least 134 people died in election-related violence. Because of widespread rigging, new voting was ordered in 1,485 polling stations, including 97 in Amethi, Rajiv Gandhi's constituency in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Ultimately, Gandhi was declared the winner over Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and no relation to Rajiv. But 20 of Rajiv's 59 ministers were defeated, a measure of the Congress Party's steep decline...
...promise was kept. At week's end Rajiv, 40, was coasting to a landslide victory in Amethi and in the country at large. In an election whose central issue was Gandhi himself, the 379 million voters who converged upon 479,000 polling places during three days last week gave the new leader an overwhelming vote of confidence. With 90% of the races decided, Gandhi's Congress (I) appeared to have carried at least 400 of the 508 contested seats in the Lok Sabha, India's lower house of Parliament, while winning more than 50% of the popular vote...