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Journalism of Courage
In a major setback for the BJP, the Congress’s K L Sharma defeated Union minister Smriti by 1.67 lakh votes in the Amethi seat. In neighbouring Rae Bareli, a Congress party bastion for decades, senior leader Rahul Gandhi won by a margin of 3.90 lakh votes — This number surpasses his mother Sonia Gandhi’s previous margins from the seat.
The Amethi win comes as a big boost to the Congress, with Rahul having lost the seat to Irani in 2019 by 55,000 votes. The loss was a big blow to the Congress, which had won the seat all but once since 1980. In 2014, Rahul had defeated Irani by a margin of 1.03 lakh votes.
Hoping to wrest its bastion back, the Congress fielded Sharma, a Gandhi family loyalist of over three decades in Amethi.
With Sharma leading by a comfortable margin, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, who had taken charge of the campaign in Rae Bareli and Amethi, said she never had any doubts about his victory.
Alongside an old photograph of her with Sharma, Priyanka wrote on X, “ Kishori bhaiya, I never had any doubts, I was sure from the beginning that you will win. Hearty congratulations to you and my dear brothers and sisters of Amethi.”
Sharma credited his win to the Gandhi family, alliance partner Samajwadi Party and the people of Amethi.
“The credit for my victory goes to the Gandhi family as this is the land of the Gandhi family. I fulfilled the responsibility assigned to me by the Gandhi family,” Sharma said.
“People of Amethi have sent the message that humility will prevail. I express my gratitude to the people of Amethi as well as Gandhi family for this victory,” he told The Indian Express.
In Rae Bareli, which was the only seat the Congress won in 2019, Rahul broke the record of Sonia Gandhi, who had contested the seat between 2004 and 2019.
In 2004, she had won the seat by a margin of about 2.49 lakh votes, while in 2009 she clinched the seat by 3.72 lakh votes. In 2014, she won the seat by a margin of 3.52 lakh votes against the BJP’s Ajay Agarwal. Subsequently in 2019, she won the seat by 1.67 lakh votes against the BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh.
This time too, Singh was in the fray and polled 2.97 lakh votes.
Accepting his defeat, BJP candidate Singh apologised to the people of Rae Bareli.
Equating people of Rae Bareli to “god”, Dinesh wrote on facebook, “I worked for Rae Bareli with humility but still if there was any lacunae in my service or I hurt anyone, then I apologise to the people.”
The news from Amethi and Rae Bareli has provided much needed fuel to the Congress cadre on the ground.
