Amethi/Rae Bareli, India – Irfan*, a tea stall owner, is convinced that change is afoot.

“There has not been much traffic on this road from Rae Bareli to Amethi ever since the Congress lost power in 2014,” he says, referring to two towns and a party that for decades have been synonymous with one family – the Nehru-Gandhis, or as they are more commonly known, the Gandhis.

The first family of Indian politics has ruled the country for almost half of its journey since independence in 1947, with three generations of prime ministers: Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, and grandson Rajiv Gandhi. And through ups and downs, when the Congress has been in power and out of it, Amethi and Rae Bareli, separated by 62km (38 miles), have for the most part stood by the family. They’ve served as safe constituencies for India’s grand old party in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which is India’s largest electoral prize: with 80 seats out of the nation’s total of 543 in the lower house of parliament.

In 2019, that tradition received a dramatic jolt when the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi – son of Rajiv – lost Amethi by 55,000 votes to Smriti Irani, a feisty minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which has been in power nationally since 2014. Rahul’s mother and former Congress chief, Sonia Gandhi, retained Rae Bareli for the party, the only seat it won in Uttar Pradesh as the BJP swept the nation, winning 303 seats overall.

Now, five years later, the towns are a tense microcosm of the national battle between the BJP and opposition Congress; between Modi and the Gandhis. Rahul is replacing his 77-year-old mother from Rae Bareli this time. BJP’s Irani is seeking reelection from Amethi. Each of them is expected to face tough competition from the other’s party. Amethi and Rae Bareli vote on May 20 in India’s giant election.

At stake are more than two seats: If the BJP wins Rae Bareli and retains Amethi, it will effectively have wiped out the Gandhi family and the Congress from Uttar Pradesh. Conversely, say opposition leaders, a Congress win in both seats could seed anti-BJP momentum in a state that often decides who rules nationally.

Irfan, from his vantage point of Tiloi town near Amethi and Rae Bareli, believes the political winds are blowing in the direction of the Congress. “Storm is building in both the cities, which will impact the entire state,” he says.

Yet, storms can be unpredictable – and Amethi and Rae Bareli know that.

Boost for the opposition?

In a video posted by the Congress party on social platforms, Rahul and his mother Sonia are seen leafing through old photos of the family visiting and contesting from Amethi and Rae Bareli, as they reflect on their family’s old association with the towns.

It is a decades-old bond. Feroze Gandhi, Indira’s husband and Rahul’s grandfather, won Rae Bareli in 1952 – independent India’s first election. Indira and Sonia won this seat subsequently, their stints interspersed by terms when their loyalists were nominated to contest from the town instead.

Only thrice has the Congress lost Rae Bareli. In 1977, a national opposition coalition toppled Indira’s government to come to power amid a wave of anger against the Congress over its imposition of a state of national emergency in 1975, when civil liberties were suspended and thousands of its political opponents were arrested. In 1996 and 1998, when the BJP was rising nationally and first came to power, it defeated the Congress here – though the Gandhi family was not in the contest on those occasions.

In Amethi, Indira’s elder son Feroze Gandhi lost the 1977 election but won in 1980. The Congress lost only once since then, in 1998, before Irani’s upset in 2019. Sonia and Rahul have both won from Amethi.

After his loss in 2019, many pundits had wondered whether Rahul would ever contest from the family pocket boroughs – or even from Uttar Pradesh – again. He had won from Wayanad in the southern state of Kerala in 2019 and contested from there again this time.

The Congress party insiders say he was unconvinced about contesting from a second seat this time, but was eventually swayed by pressure from Sonia, who was opposed to giving up the family’s bastions without a fight. Rahul’s sister Priyanka, who is now also a leader of Congress, decided against contesting.

With Rahul contesting from Rae Bareli, a longtime family friend Kishori Lal Sharma is competing against Irani from Amethi. It’s a scenario that could work for the opposition, say some of its leaders. In the days before the Congress decided on its candidates for these seats, Ameeque Jamei, a national spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party – the Congress’s biggest ally in Uttar Pradesh – had told Al Jazeera that if Rahul or Priyanka contested, the “opposition fight against the BJP will gain greater meaning”. He predicted that the Congress-led INDIA alliance that is challenging the BJP nationally could win up to 20 of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 seats.

That is easier said than done. Rahul faces a formidable challenger in the BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh, who gave Sonia a tough fight in 2019, cutting her winning margin substantially. Singh has been unsparing in his criticism of how the Gandhis treat their bloodline. The party and family rarely even mention Feroze Gandhi, Rahul’s grandfather, whose grave is 100km (60 miles) from Rae Bareli.

“A person who cannot be that of his grandfather, how can he be yours,” says Singh.

Barbershop politics

On the ground, Rahul and Priyanka are barnstorming the otherwise sleepy cities of Rae Bareli and Amethi, in their own ways.

Recently, Rahul slipped into a local barbershop to get his beard trimmed. His videos of sitting in the barbershop went viral. Priyanka divides time between the two towns, holding road shows and corner meetings.

The Congress has also brought in other heavyweight leaders to strengthen its campaigns here with their experience and political guile. At Rae Bareli’s Shalimar Guest House, Bhupesh Baghel, the former chief minister of the central state of Chhattisgarh, is marshalling supporters. “Rahul has a lot of support in Rae Bareli. So, I don’t have to do very much,” he says.

Ashok Gehlot, the former chief minister of Rajasthan, is handling the Congress campaign in Amethi against Smriti Irani, who has doubled down on her accusations that the Gandhi family neglected the town and Rae Bareli for decades despite winning from there.

The Congress is counting on the support of two key voting blocs. Muslims constitute 22 percent of Uttar Pradesh’s population. A Muslim leader from Amethi, Muhammad Alam, said many from his community could have considered voting for the BJP, but Modi’s recent attacks – including suggestions that the Congress would take Hindu wealth and give it to Muslims – had changed their minds.

Gautam Rane, a Dalit activist in Uttar Pradesh’s capital, Lucknow, says sections of the community, which sits at the bottom of India’s complex caste hierarchy, are also shifting towards the Congress. The community has traditionally backed the regional Bahujan Samaj Party in the state. The Congress has used stray comments by some BJP leaders to suggest that the party wants to change the constitution and take away caste-based affirmative action benefits from the Dalits – a charge that the BJP has denied.

“This is Rahul Gandhi’s elections,” Rane says. “No one [else] matters.”

* Name changed to protect identity

Brad Pitt has put in a lot of work to get ready for his role as a Formula 1 driver. 

Jerry Bruckheimer, who serves as a producer on the highly anticipated racing film, recently opened up about Pitt’s skills behind the wheel and how the actor prepared for the still-untitled movie.  

“He trained for four or five months. He’s an amazing driver,” Bruckheimer told People magazine while attending the Los Angeles premiere of Young Woman and the Sea. “In fact, some of the F1 drivers said he’s a natural athlete. He really is. He’s amazing in that car.” 

Pitt is set to star in the forthcoming Joseph Kosinski-directed project as veteran F1 driver Sonny Hayes. It was previously reported that seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton would act as a consultant for the film and help the 60-year-old actor train for the high-speed sport. Speaking of which, if you’re curious about how fast Pitt has been whipping around the course, well, Bruckheimer couldn’t exactly say. “I can’t tell you. The insurance company will kill me,” he told People. 

The movie itself was acquired by Apple Studios and began filming in July at last year’s British Grand Prix. Kosinski and Bruckheimer, who worked together on Top Gun: Maverick, assembled an 11th team to compete at the event. During the competition, Pitt took a spin around the Silverstone racetrack while spectators looked on. “I’m a little giddy right now, I’ve got to say,” Pitt said, speaking to Sky Sports. “I don’t know if you could call mine a hot lap, I’d call it kind of a warm lap. I’ve taken a few tours, unintentionally, through the grass.” 

While the project has mostly been kept under wraps, we do know that Pitt is slated to appear alongside Damon Idris and Javier Bardem. A few key details have also emerged about the plot. “I would be a guy who raced in the 90s,” Pitt explained to Sky Sports. “He has a horrible crash and kind of craps out and disappears and then is racing in other disciplines.”

“Then his friend, played by Javier Bardem, is the team owner. They’re the last place team, they’re 21, 22 on the grid, they’ve never scored a point and they have a young phenom played by Damson Idris and he brings me in as kind of a Hail Mary and hijinks ensue,” Pitt continued.

According to Collider, the long-awaited sports drama has allegedly set a premiere date. The website reported on Thursday that the movie will hit IMAX screens on June 27, 2025, which, if it happens, would be on par with the film’s original release timeframe.  

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has undergone another operation two days after being shot multiple times and remains in serious condition, officials said Friday.

Fico, 59, was attacked as he was greeting supporters after a government meeting in the former coal mining town of Handlova. A suspected assailant has been arrested.

SLOVAKIA PRIME MINISTER ROBERT FICO SHOT MULTIPLE TIMES, IN ‘LIFE-THREATENING CONDITION’

Miriam Lapuníková, director of the University F. D. Roosevelt hospital in Banska Bystrica, where Fico was taken by helicopter after he was shot, said Fico underwent a CT scan and was awake and stable in an intensive care unit. She described his condition as “very serious.”

She said the surgery removed dead tissues that had remained inside Fico’s body.

“I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development,” Robert Kaliniak, the defense minister and deputy prime minister, told reporters at the hospital.

Still, Kaliniak stressed that the government continues to work.

“The ministries are working on all their duties, nothing is frozen or halted, the country goes on,” he told reporters. “The state is stable and today the patient is stable as well.”

Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. His return to power last year on a pro-Russia, anti-American platform led to worries among fellow European Union and NATO members that he would abandon his country’s pro-Western course, particularly on Ukraine.

World leaders have condemned the attack and offered support for Fico and Slovakia. On Friday, the Slovak press agency reported that Pope Francis has sent a letter to President Zuzana Čaputová,

“I condemn this cowardly act of violence and assure you of my prayers to the Lord for the speedy recovery and recovery of the Prime Minister,” Francis said in the letter published by the agency.

Earlier Friday, the man charged with attempting to assassinate Fico was escorted by police to his home. Local media reported that it was part of a search for evidence.

Markiza, a Slovak television station, showed footage of the suspect being taken to his home in the town of Levice on Friday morning, and reported that police had seized a computer and some documents. Police didn’t comment.

Prosecutors have told police not to publicly identify the suspect or release other details about the case. The suspect’s detention will be reviewed at a hearing Saturday at Slovakia’s Specialized Criminal Court in Pezinok, outside the capital, Bratislava.

Unconfirmed media reports suggested that he was a 71-year-old retiree who was known as an amateur poet, and may have previously worked as a security guard at a mall in the country’s southwest.

Government authorities on Thursday gave details that matched that description. They said the suspect didn’t belong to any political groups, though the attack itself was politically motivated.

Slovakia’s presidential office said Friday that it was working to organize a meeting of leaders of all parliamentary parties for Tuesday. Čaputová, the outgoing president, announced the plan together with President-elect Peter Pellegrini, who succeeds her in mid-June, in an attempt to reduce social tensions in the country.

At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Slovakia was one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, but Fico halted arms deliveries to Ukraine when he returned to power, his fourth time serving as prime minister.

Fico’s government has also made efforts to overhaul public broadcasting — a move critics said would give the government full control of public television and radio. That, coupled with his plans to amend the penal code to eliminate a special anti-graft prosecutor, have led opponents to worry that Fico will lead Slovakia down a more autocratic path.

Thousands of demonstrators have repeatedly rallied in the capital and around the country of 5.4 million to protest his policies.

Fico said last month on Facebook that he believed rising tensions in the country could lead to the killing of politicians, and he blamed the media for fueling tensions.

Before Fico returned to power last year, many of his political and business associates were the focus of police investigations, and dozens have been charged.

His plan to overhaul of the penal system would eliminate the office of the special prosecutor that deals with organized crime, corruption and extremism.