Kunwar Ratanjit Pratap Narayan Singh, scion of the royal family of Padrauna, who was dismissed as an ?English-speaking nawab? by political rivals, suddenly finds himself the torch-bearer of the Congress? comeback trail in east Uttar Pradesh. His pedigree is impeccable. So is his education. Doon School, St Stephen?s Delhi, and a possible MBA degree from Harvard or Wharton, had his father C.P.N. Singh, former Union minister and Indira Gandhi loyalist, not been shot dead by his brother in his palace on counting day during the 1989 general elections. In 1996, Ratanjit Pratap, a rookie at 31, failed in the Lok Sabha polls. Not a major upset. The Congress was not Ratanjit Pratap?s docile durbar and the party was en route to decimation. In 1997, however, Ratanjit Pratap won in the Assembly polls ? the only Congress winner in the region. His court astrologer told him last week that he should give the next Lok Sabha elections a shot. ?I don?t know politics, but the stars tell me you will win,? he told Ratanjit Pratap. One doesn?t really need an astrologer to predict a Congress revival in east Uttar Pradesh. Out of the palace, and on to the narrow road to Rasti and other towns, the Congress is nowhere in sight. But huddled around fireplaces at roadside dhabas, people are talking about ?change?. And the Congress figures increasingly in these discussions. East Uttar Pradesh has faced the brunt of its worst-ever floods. Hardly had it recovered, when farmers did not get their crucial supply of DAP fertiliser for their rabi crop. If that wasn?t enough, four sugar mills of the region defaulted on payment of sugarcane arrears to farmers.Suddenly, the BJP is no more good news. The Captaingunj sugar factory has not paid farmers since January 1998. Farmers are resorting to heavy borrowings to pay old debts. Mewalal of Lohepur, a prominent sugarcane farmer, has ominous things to say for the BJP. ?In the last elections, farmers of this belt decided to sink caste differences and vote for the BJP because of its promise to clear all cane arrears. Not a paisa has come our way. Even our corpses won?t vote for the BJP,? he says. D.N. Mishra, social worker in Padrauna, says: ?Kalyan Singh and A.B. Vajpayee, in their election speeches, promised to clear cane dues. So farmers took more loans for seeds and fertilisers. Now the farmers are sunk.? Clearly, urban politicians have not been able to gauge farmers? sentiments. ?BJP leaders meet in cities and do not visit their constituencies. They are still looking at the next elections in terms of sheer caste arithmetic. They are in for a shock,? says Ratanjit Pratap. The Congress has suddenly been pitchforked into a position where it stands to gain the most from this anti-BJP drift in rural east Uttar Pradesh. In Ramkola, a major sugar-producing centre, farmers who voted for the BJP said: ?Our cane arrears were paid within a month during Congress rule. Our fertilisers reached on time. Our land did not have to be pawned. We will back the Congress. It deserves a chance.? Khadi kurtas and Gandhi caps are distinctly visible at street corners. Compensation for floods was delayed to thousands of families. The day before Sonia Gandhi was to visit Padrauna, villagers filed into the Congress office there and asked party leaders to lead them to the district magistrate?s office. Finally, the crowd stormed the magistrate?s office and took out its wrath on the furniture. When leaving, they warned that the Congress will teach errant officials a lesson. The protest was impromptu. The protestors had nothing to do with political parties. Some BJP leaders are aware of the damage potential. Rajesh Pandey, a BJP leader from Kasia in Kushingar district, says: ?The BJP realised the impact of the onion price after the party was routed in three states. No lesson seems to have been drawn from that. The cane dues, debt and poverty will cost the BJP dearly.? No election is due here. Yet, at bus stops and stations, outside cane factories and in tea shops, ?next polls? are what people are talking about. Ratanjit Pratap?s astrologer could just be right.