In Amethi, Congress Pins Its Hope On A Non-Gandhi After 26 Years

Amethi isn’t just another Lok Sabha constituency for the Congress. (File)

The Amethi seat in Uttar Pradesh had been a Gandhi family stronghold until it fell to a strong BJP wave in 2019. While his supporters would have expected Rahul Gandhi to make a bid to reclaim this lost fortress, the Congress has chosen a non-Gandhi after 26 long years for the task.

Kishori Lal Sharma, an ardent loyalist of the Gandhi family, is the Congress candidate from Amethi this time. He will only be the second non-Gandhi Congress candidate in three decades to fight from the seat held by at least four Gandhi family members at different times.

The last non-Gandhi candidate from this seat was Satish Sharma, who won it twice after it had fallen vacant following the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. But he tasted defeat in the 1998 election.

Prestige Battle For Congress

Amethi isn’t just another Lok Sabha constituency for the Congress. It’s a legacy seat represented by Rajiv Gandhi, his brother Sanjay Gandhi, wife Sonia Gandhi, and son Rahul Gandhi.

Sanjay Gandhi won the seat in 1990, but after his death in an air crash that year led to bypolls in 1981. Rajiv Gandhi got the seat and won it four times until his assassination in 1991.

The Congress chose Satish Sharma to contest the bypolls and won it. Mr Sharma went on to win it for a second time in 1996, but fell short of votes in 1998. BJP won the election.

In the general elections a year later, Sonia Gandhi clinched it back from the BJP, and passed it over to son Rahul Gandhi. Mr Gandhi, who would go on to head the Congress a decade later, won the seat in 2004, 2009, and 2014.

In 2019, he lost to the BJP’s Smriti Irani, now a Union minister, but remained an MP by winning a second seat in Kerala – Wayanad.

Five years since, Mr Gandhi re-contested the Wayanad seat amid speculations that he might try to win Amethi back too. But the Congress had other plans. It has fielded Kishori Lal Sharma from the seat, while offering Raebareli – the only seat held by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh – to Mr Gandhi.

Mr Gandhi will now be contesting from the seat his mother Sonia Gandhi has represented for five consecutive terms since 2004 until she decided to move to Rajya Sabha. And after 26 years, his Amethi seat will see a non-Gandhi fighting to keep the Congress flag flying high.