Ending months of suspense over the Amethi Lok Sabha seat, the Congress has chosen Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma as its candidate against the incumbent BJP MP, Smriti Irani. The Amethi Lok Sabha election has been scheduled for May 20 in the fifth phase.
The Amethi Lok Sabha constituency has for decades been the ‘family bastion’ for Congress, having stayed with the party since the first election in 1967. Except for two brief terms (1977-80 and 1998-99), the seat was held by the Grand Old Party until Smriti Irani of the BJP grabbed it from Rahul Gandhi. Irani had already challenged Gandhi to seek only the Amethi seat if he felt confident enough. However, the Congress initially fielded Gandhi from Wayanad in Kerala, claiming that the constituency supported him in times of distress and that he was not one to neglect the people.
Congress releases another list of candidates for the upcoming #LokSabhaElections2024
— ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2024
Rahul Gandhi to contest from Raebareli and Kishori Lal Sharma from Amethi. pic.twitter.com/2w4QQcn9ok
Smriti Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi in 2019 by more than 55,000 votes. Gandhi held the seat for three consecutive terms from 2004 to 2019. However, on the other hand, he managed to retain his Lok Sabha seat by winning from Wayanad.
This year, there was much speculation that Rahul Gandhi would plan to reclaim his seat. Congress supporters wanted Rahul Gandhi to contend for the Amethi seat and Priyanka Gandhi for Raebareli. However, the duo became hesitant about competing in UP. Former Congress president and the duo’s mother, Sonia Gandhi is said to have intervened to persuade them to do the same.
The BJP meanwhile has criticized the Congress party for not fielding Rahul Gandhi from Amethi seat. The party said that the Wayanad MP has abandoned the Amethi Lok Sabha seat, adding that it is an admission by Gandhi that he cannot win the seat he held for two terms till 2019.
From Amethi, the Congress party has fielded Kishorilal Sharma, an influential Nehru-Gandhi family loyal representing Amethi and Rae Bareli for more that two decades now.
Amethi’s importance in the Congress party
It is important to note that the Amethi seat is a very crucial constituency for the Gandhi family leading the Congress party. Sonia Gandhi made her election debut here in 1999 and a year later she took over as the party president. In 2004, she shifted to Rae Bareli, allowing Rahul, her son to make his electoral debut from here.
According to reports, Rahul’s decision to move to Rae Bareli this time stems from the fact that Amethi has no longer remained a family seat for the Congress party following the 2019 loss. Furthermore, the party members as quoted by the media indicate that if Rahul wins both Wayanad (the second seat he is contending for) and Rae Bareli, it will be simpler to give up the Kerala constituency, citing the family’s even deeper connection to Rae Bareli.
Amethi, of course, has an unstated fear of providing losses again to the Congress party. However, Rahul’s decision not to contend for the seat is certain to be met with accusations that he is scared of Irani.
PM Modi takes a dig at Rahul Gandhi, says ‘Daro Mat’
Earlier, in the month of March, Union minister Smriti Irani had slammed the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and had said that he was scared of being defeated in Amethi.
Today, after Congress’ decision to not field Gandhi from Amethi, PM Modi mocked the Congress leader using his own words. While addressing a rally in Bengal, PM Modi said that Rahul Gandhi had run away from Amethi for fear of defeat. “Today I also want to tell him, Daro Mat (don’t be afraid), Bhaago Mat (don’t run),” he said.
PM Modi did not even spare Sonia Gandhi, claiming that he had anticipated that both mother and son would avoid contesting their seats out of fear. “I had said, their biggest leader will not dare to contest. She will run away out of fear. She ran to Rajasthan and from there entered Rajya Sabha. That is exactly what happened. I had said that shehzade (Rahul Gandhi) is afraid of losing in Wayanad, and the moment voting ends, he will start looking for a third seat. Now even from Amethi, despite all his loyalists saying it, he panicked so much, that he ran from there and is now looking towards Raebareli. These people keep going around telling people Daro Mat. Today I will also tell them… ji bhar ke kehta hoon. Arey daro mat, bhaago mat,” he said.
Congress loses party bastion Amethi in 2019 elections
Despite undertaking combative campaigns in Amethi, the party including the senior Congress leaders could not garner enough support for Rahul Gandhi who lost to Bhartiya Janata Party’s Smriti Irani in the year 2019. The BJP leader defeated the Gandhi scion in his bastion with Priyanka Gandhi leading the campaign. Smriti Irani’s spectacular win, with a margin of 55,120 votes in a Gandhi stronghold, was a major blow to the party and reflected the state’s mood against Congress. Both Priyanka and Rahul failed to sense the resentment prevailing in the people of Amethi back then.
While Rahul Gandhi more or less forgot Amethi after his 2014 win against Irani, she continued to visit Amethi to establish connections with the people and make her place in their hearts. Irani’s painstaking efforts helped her carve a path to victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections emerging as a “giant slayer”.
Not only this, but the Congress party fielded 67 candidates from the state and lost security deposit in 63 of them. The Congress only won one seat from Rae Bareli and the deposits of the 63 candidates were not refunded.
In spite of this, the leftists, liberals, and the secular have been extending support to Rahul Gandhi claiming that he is the strongest opponent of PM Modi amid the Lok Sabha elections 2024.
The Amethi fiasco of the Gandhi family has cemented what the Left liberals and many ‘darbari’ political commentators have been avoiding to admit before the public: the Gandhi family is no longer politically strong. The brother and sister are hailed as political heirs of Indira Gandhi. Tons of media reports, foreign media articles are written about them. Everything from their looks, to daily habits, to their outfits is praised to the high heavens by the family loyals in India and around the world, but the truth is, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are political flops.
Not only the Gandhi family has let down their supporters and party workers by refusing to face Smriti Irani in Amethi, they have also exposed the hollowness of the media hype around themselves.
If one looks at the PR behind Rahul Gandhi, one would believe he is the strong, powerful Congress leader challenging the political behemoth called Modi. In reality, Rahul Gandhi is a paper tiger who can’t even face a young member of the Modi cabinet.
Rahul Gandhi has been in the news in the past for spreading anti-India and anti-Modi agenda even on the global platforms. He has criticized the BJP-led govt and accused it of unnecessarily targeting the opposition parties, tapping their phones, etc. Reportedly, all of these allegations were exposed to be a lie as Gandhi had refused to give up his phone for examination back then.
Eager to swallow any bait against Modi, the foreign media continues to project Rahul Gandhi as some brave hero who is daring to challenge Modi. But the truth is despite carrying the political legacy of 3 generations of India’s former Prime Minister’s, getting power and influence on a silver platter, and with the larger section of media eager to please him, Rahul Gandhi still failed to pose any challenge to Modi.
Rahul Gandhi was rejected by his own I.N.D.I. Alliance partners
The opposition parties in India boasted about fighting together against PM Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections but eventually the I.N.D.I. Alliance party members backed out of supporting the leading Congress party resulting in the latter’s lack of confidence.
The Alliance initially failed to field joint candidates and later several parties like JDU, TMC, AAP, etc decided to fight individually from their respective states. In an unexpected turn of events, Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar quit as the Bihar Chief Minister on 28th January and decided to form the state government in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners in Bihar.
Mamata Banerjee’s TMC also parted ways with Congress, primarily over disagreement on leadership issues. Mamata, a strong regional leader herself, seemed unwilling to cede her position to Rahul Gandhi, a mere MP who didn’t even want to become his party’s president.
Interestingly, a similar situation emerged in the state of Kerala where the CPIM and the Congress who are allies nationally played a blame game and accused each other of having an ‘understanding’ with the BJP.
Even the Aam Aadmi Party after the JDU and TMC, decided that it would fight alone from the state of Punjab and that it wouldn’t ally with the Indian National Congress in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024.
The broken pan-India alliance failed to produce a multiplier effect, demonstrating that the nationwide alliance was counter-intuitive. Except for Congress, which is rapidly losing its political relevance, the alliance partners wielded little power outside of their home districts further crippling the party that dreams of throwing the BJP-led govt out of power.
The alliance partners even failed to add to each other’s strength, instead directly or indirectly leveling significant accusations against each other on their turf, tarnishing their partners, including CPI(M)-Congress, AAP-Congress, and TMC-Congress, among others.
These factors have done nothing but weaken the Congress resulting in a loss of confidence of even its party members in its leaders.
Congress says Rahul Gandhi contesting from Rae Bareli is ‘strategy’
Earlier the week, the Amethi unit of the Congress, weary of the prolonged wait for a candidate announcement held a sit-in protest in the long-standing VIP constituency of Uttar Pradesh. Congress workers voiced their demands with chants of “Amethi demands the Gandhi family.” However, the party by announcing Kishori Lal from Amethi disappointed its own workers and forced them to stay happy claiming that Gandhi’s contesting from Rae Bareli was part of a “larger strategy.”
Many people have many opinions on the news of @RahulGandhi contesting elections from Rae Bareli.
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) May 3, 2024
Remember, he is an experienced player of politics and chess. The party leadership takes its decisions after much discussion, and as part of a larger strategy. This single decision…
“Rae Bareli has not only been Sonia Ji’s seat but also Indira Gandhi’s seat. This is not a legacy but a responsibility, a duty”, he added. On Priyanka Gandhi’s absence from the Congress list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections 2024, he said that she can reach the house by contesting any by-election.
This incident will be marked in the pages of history given the Gandhi family’s decision to abandon the Amethi constituency out of fear and under the guise of ‘being part of a larger strategy’. The relevance of the Congress party is anyway diminishing. A lot has been said about the Congress party’s decline with the Gandhi family at the helm. The top leadership of the party has strategically sidelined other emerging leaders and even alienated promising young leaders who might pose a threat to Rahul’s alleged royal right. Election after election, loss after loss, the party keeps sinking slowly, still declaring how it is privileged to be steered by the Gandhi family.
