New Delhi/Amethi: Finally, the suspense was over about the Congress candidates from the two high-profile Lok Sabha seats in UP — Amethi and Raebareli as the party leadership on Friday announced that Rahul Gandhi will contest from Raebareli and Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma will fight from Amethi.
After weeks of speculation that Rahul Gandhi may file his nomination from Amethi, a seat he has represented thrice in the Lok Sabha, the Congress leader was shifted to the neighbouring constituency of Raebareli which had been held by his mother Sonia Gandhi. The Gandhi scion will face BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh this time.
This seat is considered to be one of the safest seats for the Congress as the party has won it for 17 times out of the 20 elections witnessed so far.
Raebareli also delivered a shocker in its electoral history as a sitting Prime Minister lost an election from here. Indira Gandhi had to suffer defeat at the hands of Janata Party candidate Raj Narain in 1977 just after Emergency. Earlier, the seat had been represented in the Lok Sabha by Feroze Gandhi, grandfather of Rahul Gandhi.
From Amethi, the Congress relied upon Kishori Lal Sharma to take on Union Minister Smriti Irani who had defeated Rahul Gandhi in 2019 elections.
Kishori Lal Sharma is a long-term loyalist of the Gandhi family and has been working as an MP’s representative in the two constituencies for a long time. According to Congress leaders, he is a grassroots man which will work to his advantage.
Speaking to mediapersons, Sharma said he has been working in Amethi for 40 years now. “I am very grateful that the Congress has given this opportunity to an ordinary worker like me. I came here in 1987 as a Youth Congress member and from then I have been here. I started my career with Rajiv (Gandhi) ji. In 1987, Rajivji brought me here. Then the circumstances were such that I stayed here.” Amethi and Raebareli will go to polls on May 20 in the fifth of the seven-phase general election.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in a post on X said, “Kishori Lal Sharma ji has been associated with our family for years. He has always been dedicated towards serving the people of Amethi and Rae Bareli. His passion for public service is an example in itself.”
Amethi has long been synonymous with the Gandhis but it would be the first time in 25 years that a Gandhi family member will not be contesting election from this seat.
Considered a citadel of the Gandhi family since its creation as a constituency in 1967, Amethi has been represented by a Gandhi family member for about 31 years since then.
The last time a non-Gandhi was in the fray from the constituency was in 1998, when Satish Sharma, a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, contested the polls but lost to the BJP’s Sanjaya Sinh.
Sonia Gandhi reclaimed the seat in 1999 routing Singh by over 3 lakh votes. In 2004, Sonia shifted to the adjacent Rae Bareli constituency to make way for her son Rahul Gandhi who won the constituency for three consecutive terms in 2004, 2009 and 2014.
In the 1977 election after the Emergency, Ravindra Pratap Singh of the Janata Party became an MP from Amethi, defeating former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay Gandhi. However, Sanjay Gandhi defeated Singh in the 1980 general election.
After Sanjay Gandhi’s death in a plane crash, Rajiv Gandhi bagged the seat in the consequent by-election held in 1981. Rajiv Gandhi went on to represent this constituency until 1991 when he was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu by the Sri Lanka-based militant group LTTE. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Irani won the Amethi seat for BJP with a margin of over 55,000 votes, polling 4,68,514 votes as against Rahul Gandhi’s 4,13,394 votes.