ALLAHABAD/BADOHI: With sweat dripping from their forehead and clad in regular cotton vests, Ashok Sahni Kewat, 59, and his son, Abhishek Sahni Kewat, 26, were running up the deck of their two-year-old steamer on the banks of Manaiya ghat.Their steamer was handpicked by Team Priyanka as she begins her 2019 Lok Sabha poll campaign with a three-day poll voyage of Allahabad, Bhadhoi, Mirzapur, which culminates in Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi constituency, Varanasi. And here’s irony. This Kewat family comes from the well-known Mallah clan — counted among prominent OBCs of UP — and has stood rock-solid by BJP in 2014 and 2017. “We don’t know how 2019 polls will pan out, but we kewats are known for ferrying people. Like we carried Lord Ram across the river, we will lift Priyanka ji as well. Just like we did with Modji ji,” smiles Ashok.As the two kewats rev up the steamer’s engine, surrounded by an army of television crew and Jal Police officials, they are oblivious to the fact they were taking forward their ancestor’s legacy of ferrying the Gandhis. “I took Indiraji in my boat in 1977, when I was all of 18. Now, I am a father of five children and each of them is reliving the experience. They asked me to take photographs with Priyanka ji and frame them. We boatmen live with the peril of capsizing, weak monsoon, uncertainty over tourism and commercial business,” Ashok told TOI.The boatmen are excited to undertake the journey and show Priyanka around the villages on the Ganga banks. But they are fuming about the absence of laws for running boats, which occasionally face environment hurdles. “We are upset with the government for not solving the problem. Boatment need livelihood. My son is a graduate from Banaras Hindu University and other one is an engineer. But, we want them to join our business and help it grow,” said Ashok.

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