Unbelievable as it may have seemed till only the other day, Amethi has eclipsed Varanasi in terms of dramatic value in the general election of 2014. In Varanasi, people know they are going to elect the primus inter pares of the new regime; given the unparalleled response to his road show when he went to file his nomination on April 24, no surprises are expected, even if the district administration persists with the mean-minded denial of permission to hold a public rally.

May 7, however, will go down in Indian history as the day that truly brought the curtains down on a decadent and decaying dynasty, and sent its weak but desperate heir on a political trajectory of no return. For someone raised to believe that the people of India (read courtiers, spin doctors and fellow travellers) would one day shove him into the Prime Minister’s office, which he would then graciously accept, Rahul Gandhi clearly finds the prospect of an honest defeat in an electoral contest unpalatable, and unacceptable.

Indeed, this may be true of his larger family as well, which alone explains why Preeti Sahay, secretary or public relations officer of his sister, Priyanka Vadra, was found to be illegally present in booth number 210 and 211 in Thori village of Jagdishpur area of the constituency (pic.twitter.com/oyd9nnezMm). She was clearly tasked with some chore, Priyanka Vadra herself having previously left as per Election Commission guidelines, as she was neither a voter nor a candidate.

As luck would have it, the BJP’s highly combative Smriti Irani discovered Preeti Sahay and got into a verbal match with her on discovering that she did not have the pass for entering the booth. Irani then clicked Sahay’s photograph with her mobile and alerted the media that was following her around  (pic.twitter.com/Uo8uHBbyYm). Sahay meanwhile told ABP reporter Vikas Bhadauria not to film her presence in the booth.

The Election Commission, which has been found terribly wanting in vulnerable States like West Bengal and in sensitive constituencies like Amethi where the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been protesting uneven behaviour for the past two days, tried to equate the two parties in the incident. District Electoral Officer Jagat Raj Tripathi said that after the BJP candidate complained, the police took Sahay out of the booth, but added, “Prime facie, we found that both the persons were wrong in their own places. While Preeti Sahay should not have been inside the booth, Smiriti Irani also misbehaved inside the booth”. So, a culprit and a potential victim of malpractice enjoy parity in the eyes of the Electoral Officer!

Congress’s Amethi candidate Rahul Gandhi himself got embroiled in several questionable practices during this high stakes election, which has the potential to nix his political career and ambitions forever. For the first time in the past 10 years, the Gandhi scion spent the night in Amethi and remained present during the polling, thus revealing his anxiety about his fate due to the threat mounted by Smriti Irani and the AAP’s Kumar Vishwas.

As Rahul Gandhi moved from booth to booth inside the constituency, which has also been shown on ABP News, the social media got after him with unexpected ferocity. To begin with, these unpaid election observers protested that a non-voter (Rahul Gandhi) had entered a booth (pic.twitter.com/2a0WpMqHz3), inspected the voting machine (pic.twitter.com/6lD2nfVjLp) and appeared to be monitoring the voting (pic.twitter.com/KjAnvM9MCJ). Worse, he even conducted a meeting with a few workers (pic.twitter.com/udbUI2dy3J) inside the booth, that too, without wearing the requisite badge. Clearly the Gandhis think that normal rules do not apply to them.

Many things were amiss with the Congress vice-president’s behaviour. To begin with, a person who is an SPG protectee cannot move around the constituency with security, much less enter a polling booth if not a voter in the constituency, which Gandhi is not, having cast his vote in Delhi on April 7. The law states, “(21) On the day of the poll, no person who has been assessed to be having a security threat and therefore given official security shall enter the vicinity of a polling station premise (within 100 meters) with his security personnel. Further, on the day of the poll no such person shall move around in a constituency with his security personnel. If the person provided with official security happens to be a voter also, then he or she shall restrict his / her movement – accompanied by security personnel, to voting only”.

Another rule says, “V Polling Booth. Excepting the voters, no one without a valid pass from the Election Commission shall enter the polling booths”. While the AAP candidate Kumar Vishwas and his supporters were less agile in uploading proof of the Congress malfeasance during the election process, they constantly complained of booth capturing, fake voting and intimidation of workers. The AAP alleged that despite complaints from several places about intimidation of workers, the observers and district administration failed to take action on complaints being sent through phone, e-mail and SMSes.

However, advocate Somnath Bharti managed to post a picture of Congress’s abuse of power by hoisting the party buntings and Rahul Gandhi poster in a Government school serving as a booth (pic.twitter.com/Wc1Mxyrjxa).

Twitter was abuzz with complaints of the distribution of money and liquor in the constituency last night, which was allegedly returned by the Amethi residents. If true, this would be worrying news for those doing the distribution. At Gunnaur village in Musafirkhana area, the BJP alleged that some youths carrying over rupees one lakh in cash were distributing the same among voters. Police Superintendent Hira Lal confirmed the detention of two boys but said no cash was recovered from them. According to CNN-IBN, AAP complained against Rahul Gandhi travelling in Amethi with a cavalcade of 15 vehicles on polling day (CNN-IBN News ‏@ibnlive 3h).

The party alleged massive both capturing and violation of the model code of conduct and that no one from the Election Commission was accessible. A similar complaint was made by the BJP candidate late last night as well. Allegations of booth capturing and goondaism were most pronounced from places where the Congress candidate was on a sticky wicket. At Phula village, Rahul Gandhi lost his temper when a villager chanted har har Modi. At one booth in this village, Rahul Gandhi protested at a lotus drawn on a black board. Locals say the situation is bad for the ruling party, hence its desperation.