Amethi Constituency: Will Congress Retrieve Its Bastion?
In the Lok Sabha election, Amethi is a major parliamentary seat in the political powerhouse of Uttar Pradesh. Initially, its name was Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj Nagar; later, it was changed to Amethi. This is the political workplace of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Since 1967, Gandhi family members, including Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi, have been elected from this constituency to the Lower House of Parliament for many consecutive terms.
However, the 2024 general elections became more significant in the political fray of Amethi. Looking back at history, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has won the seat for two terms in this Congress stronghold. While Sanjay Singh won the seat as a BJP candidate in 1998, Smriti Irani was another candidate who secured the seat. In 2019, Smriti Irani won the seat by defeating senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi by securing 4,68,514 votes.
Interestingly, Congress in Amethi has a history of retrieving the lost seat in the very next election. In 1998, while the BJP won the seat, Congress retrieved the seat in the 1999 election by fielding Sonia Gandhi as the candidate. Congress has also retrieved the seat from Bharatiya Lok Dal by fielding Sanjay Gandhi as a candidate in 1980. Similarly, Congress is looking for the retrieval of seats from Smriti Irani, who won against Rahul Gandhi in 2019. Amethi becomes more significant in the political fray because the question arises: Can Congress and the Gandhi family retrieve their bastion from the ruling BJP?
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has won the seat for three consecutive terms—in 2004, 2009, and 2014—by a large margin. This year, Rahul Gandhi is contesting from Rae Bareli instead of Amethi. As a result, Congress has fielded Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, who has spent 40 years managing Gandhi’s poll campaigns in both Amethi and Rae Bareli. KL Sharma”s name was announced, along with the surprise candidacy of Rahul Gandhi in Rae Bareli, on the last day of filing nominations in Amethi. However, Congress and Sharma have started campaigns, highlighting Amethi as the homeland of the Gandhi family and the lack of fulfillment of BJP promises in prior elections. The former Rajasthan Chief Minister, who came to Amethi as an observer, made the statement that if KL Sharma can definitely defeat Smriti Irani, then why need Rahul Gandhi in the seat?
Congress leaders and workers express high confidence in the huge margin win of KL Sharma in the seat. Alongside, Priyanka Gandhi has also taken charge of the election campaigns in the constituency. Taking responsibility for campaigns in both Amethi and Rae Bareli, Priyanka Gandhi held more than 15 corner meetings with KL Sharma in Amethi. In the campaigns, Priyanka emphasises her family’s connection with Amethi and KL Sharma’s familiarity with the people of Amethi. In its campaign, Congress talked about the projects that started in the erstwhile UPA regime but were stopped by the NDA government. The Congress also mentions the projects that came up during Rajiv Gandhi’s time, like BHEL and HAL.
Meanwhile, Sharma encountered a jibe from Dinesh Pratap Singh, BJP candidate against Rahul Gandhi in Rae Bareli, who said that former was the peon and servant of the Gandhi family. Sharma, responded that he is a pure politician, not a servant of the Gandhi family. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which has declared an alliance with Congress as a part of the INDIA bloc, has also extended its support to the Congress candidate. The SP’s support and votes will boost Congress’s chances in Amethi as well as in all seats in Uttar Pradesh.
This is Smriti Irani’s third election from Amethi. She lost the first election in 2014 with a margin of 1 lakh votes, but won the seat in 2019. The BJP hopes that the incumbent Union Minister will win the seat by highlighting all the development works, including roads, done by both the Modi and Yogi governments in the area. The BJP campaign also echoes the distancing of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi after the defeat. In reality, after the failure in Amethi in 2019, Rahul Gandhi has visited the Amethi constituency two or three times.
The ruling party workers appeal to the voters to vote for ‘Modi and Yogi’ rather than focusing on candidates, as they hope for the formation of BJP government in the centre. A chunk of voters share sentiments of unhappiness with Smriti Irani”s performance in the constituency. However, voters also say that if the Congress candidate was from the Gandhi family, they may have hit the feeling that they had voted for a bigger cause. Anyway, the general sentiment of the voters is that the vote is not cast for the candidates but for Modi or Congress.
The prior results of the Assembly elections also add confidence in BJP camps. Three of the five seats were won by the BJP in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections. While Salon, Tiloi, and Jagdishpur have been won by the BJP, the SP has secured the remaining two seats, Amethi and Gauriganj. Smriti Irani also mentions that the public has given fifty more years to the Gandhi family, but she has only got five. The BJP and Smriti Irani request more time for the developmental projects.
Meanwhile, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has also fielded a candidate in the Amethi seat. The party has announced Nanhe Singh Chauhan as its candidate, replacing Ravi Prakash Maurya. Later, the party explained about replacement which is following the caste equations in the constituency. Nanhe Singh Chauhan belongs to the OBC Nonia community, which has over 1.50 lakh voters in the constituency. By fielding an OBC candidate, the BSP also expects to garner the support of both OBC and Dalit community voters, who are the core base of support for the party.
(This story is part of a Timeline. internship project.)
