Rahul Gandhi’s simplicity praised, but Indore traders stay with Sumitra Mahajan and Vijayvargiya

INDORE: Gunjan Sharma, owner of Young Tarang eatery in Indore’s busy ‘56 Dukaan’ market, is readying to put a picture of his latest high-profile customer — Congress president Rahul Gandhi — next to an existing one of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan who had a meal here about five years ago.
Sharma can’t stop raving about the simplicity of Gandhi “who just walked in” for a meal on Monday night. He also agrees with Gandhi that the implementation goods and services tax (GST) has hassled businessmen like him, who are caught in a maze of ever-changing rules and filing multiple returns.

But will he vote for Congress? Sharma is not sure. “I don’t think Indore’s business community is so angry that it would vote out BJP. There is no option – yahan Congress hi Congress ko harati hai (Congress makes Congress lose),” he says.

In Indore, the financial capital of Madhya Pradesh, the underlying sentiment seems to be that while people may be enamoured by Gandhi’s well-attended roadshow, it may not translate into significant electoral gains for Congress. Out of the 5 seats in Indore City, the Congress last won one in 1985, another in 1990, two of the seats in 1998 and the Indore-3 seat in 2008. Most people ET talked with expect BJP’s vice-grip on Indore to continue in the upcoming elections.

There are some businessmen who support Congress. Govind Agarwal, president of Tiles Association in Indore, said he told Gandhi in a meeting on Tuesday that the city’s businessmen were suffering from “high blood pressure and diabetes due to the stress caused by GST’s mechanisms”. The Congress leader promised to simplify GST with just one or two tax slabs if his party comes to power in the Centre, Agarwal said.

He was one of some 600 businessmen and professionals that Gandhi met in Indore on Tuesday. The Congress leader raised the GST issue strongly, but multiple shopkeepers in Sarafa Bazaar, Kothari Market and Cloth Market in the city told ET that BJP’s loyal business voters may not desert BJP yet.

A senior BJP leader, who monitored Gandhi’s two-day trip to Indore, said Congress strategy of “slamming GST” had earlier failed miserably in Gujarat’s Surat area.

Locals also said Congress does not have strong leaders in the Indore region who can be compared with BJP’s long-time Indore MP Sumitra Mahajan, or its Mhow MLA, Kailash Vijayvargiya.

BJP has also invoked the city’s pride by saying Indore has become the country’s “cleanest city” under the BJP reign and the government now aims to make Indore one of the five cleanest cities in the world. And it’s bringing metro rail to the city.

Out of nine seats in Indore district, Congress holds just one — Rau on the outskirts of the city where its Jitu Patwari is the sitting MLA. The party is hopeful of winning more, saying Indore still suffers from problem of non-resolution of illegal settlements, and that farmers in rural areas of the district are distressed.