A faux mansion sandwiched between automobile showrooms, Harnam Palace and Party Lawns is a popular venue for East Delhi weddings. On Tuesday morning, it was the uncharacteristically upbeat host of the primary of a party poised to perform dismally in the national election, if opinion polls and street talk are to be believed.



American-style primaries, in which party leaders vie with each other for an election nomination, are the latest experiment within India’s Grand Old Party, prompted by the democratising impulses of its "young" dynast, 43-year-old Rahul Gandhi. Fifteen constituencies have been selected across India for the primaries. Two are in Delhi. In one of those, the New Delhi constituency, Ajay Maken won unopposed.



But in North East Delhi, Harnam Palace was ready to witness a real contest – with old-style ballot boxes placed in curtained enclosures – as Jai Prakash Agarwal, a five-time MP, took on Rajesh Lilothia, a former MLA.



Around 11.30 in the morning, as both the candidates made their pitches to the 300-odd assembled party members, Harcharan Singh Josh, a tall Sikh man in a red turban and a brown bandhgala, stood fuming at the gates.



"April 10 is not far away," he said. "Are we dividing the Congress or uniting the Congress?”



It seemed like a rare public outburst against a Rahul Gandhi idea. But it turned out to be a minor gripe. "I have been a member of the Congress since 1965," Josh said. "I have been a secretary of the All India Congress Committee for 12 years. I am an ex-member of the minority commission. And they are not letting me inside. They say the gates closed at 11 am. But no one had bothered to inform me about the time and venue."



Josh was not the only one to complain about the poor management of the primary. A group of Congressmen huddled around a local TV crew to rant about allegedly fake names in the voter lists, the irregularities in the process, the misinformation. But they took great care to intersperse their angry sound bites with regular bursts of 'Rahul Gandhi, Zindabad!' One of them explained, "Rahul Gandhiji is trying to weaken money power and strengthen the party worker, but some people are trying to defeat the process by not letting genuine workers inside to vote.”



Those who made it inside, and managed to cast their vote, however, sounded quite happy. "Thanks to Rahulji, the karyakarta is getting respect. The worker does a lot of running around but is not valued. Now the worker would be valued,” said Vimla Devi, a middle-aged woman who said she had joined the party three years ago and worked with the local municipal councillor, Guddu Devi.



"What about you?” I asked a rather meek looking woman standing next to Vimla.



“My husband got a ticket to contest the municipal elections in 2002. He won from Usmanpur, but in the next round, the seat was reserved for women. I contested but lost," said the woman, Vidyavati Devi.



"What do you think of this election?"



"I don't have much understanding of politics. I am a woman. I am from a Bania family, you know…" she said and her voice trailed off.



"Come, I'll introduce you to Guddu Deviji," said Vimla, not very pleased with the poor impression her friend was creating of the role of women in the party.



Guddu Devi, a feisty leader, surrounded by a coterie of women, immediately launched into fulsome praise for Rahul Gandhi. “Rahulji has given a chance to the worker, a right to the worker to exercise choice... This should happen across all elections, from the municipal level to the state level.”



"But isn’t this election creating bad blood within the party?"



"Now, now, don't try to dig out the inside story,” laughed one of Guddu Devi’s supporters.



The inside buzz, not difficult to gather after a couple of conversations, was that workers believed the North East Delhi constituency had been selected for the primary because the Congress high command wanted to edge out 69-year-old Jai Prakash Agarwal, an old-timer who had headed the Delhi Congress since 2009 and had presided over its rout in the assembly polls last December. Rajesh Lilothia, 48, was among those who lost in the Delhi assembly elections, but as a Dalit leader who had been active in the youth Congress, workers claimed he enjoyed the backing of Rahul Gandhi.



“Lilothiaji might be close to Rahulji but as you can see not many people here know him,” said a party member, who identified himself as a real estate agent and builder, but requested anonymity.



Indeed, Lilothia cut a solitary figure, while Agarwal was constantly mobbed by supporters. Clad in a white kurta pyjama and rustic mojris, Agarwal behaved like a traditional neta, holding up his hands in a namaste, parting them only to touch the feet of elderly workers, or to bless younger ones bending down to touch his.



Lilothia, on the other hand, exuded urbanity in a burgundy kurta teamed with leather moccasins. He shook hands with people and sat down for a long interview with a journalist.



Agarwal, when approached by this reporter, said, “Please…Later…I’m in tension.” As it turned out, Agarwal was needlessly worried. He sailed through the election. Of the 299 valid votes, he polled 252. Lilothia won a mere 47.



“Truth be told, Lilothiaji does not stand a chance,” the builder had claimed in the morning.



“So why is he contesting?”



The builder laughed.



“It makes for a good story for the media. You can write, 'Rahul ji ki wajah se ek gareeb aur pratarit samaj ke vyakti ne, Balmiki parivaar ke ladke ne, MP ki ticket ke liye chunaav ladne ki himmat jutai.'" 'It was thanks to Rahul, a young Dalit leader dared to fight for a ticket to contest parliamentary polls.



