New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from Rae Bareli rather than his traditional constituency Amethi is seen as a self-preservatory political move in the larger scheme of things. However, the defensive call is understandable, as Amethi is no longer a safe seat for the party. Over the past few years, especially since 2019, a range of manoeuvres, on the political field as well as behind the scenes, by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have transformed Amethi into a thorny pitch for the Gandhi siblings.
By deciding to contest in Rae Bareli against a relatively weaker opponent of the BJP, Rakesh Pratap Singh, a former Congressman, Rahul Gandhi has chosen the easier of the two seats, if past records and present political circumstances are considered. In 2019, Rae Bareli was the only seat the Congress managed to win in Uttar Pradesh. In that election, Rahul Gandhi was defeated in his constituency Amethi by Narendra Modi’s favoured minister Smriti Irani, who has since 2014 been at the Nehru-Gandhi scion’s throat. In 2014, at the height of the Lok Sabha campaign that ended the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule, Modi had famously jumped into Irani’s defence, calling her his “younger sister”, after the Congress’ Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had bluntly snubbed Irani as a threat to her brother. Irani lost the 2014 election but drastically reduced Rahul’s victory margin to 1.08 lakh votes. In 2009, he had won the seat with a massive margin of 3.70 lakh votes, securing 71% votes as against the BJP’s dismal 5.8%.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Amethi and Rae Bareli were the only two seats the Congress won in 2014. In 2019, Irani scripted a major upset as she defeated Rahul in Amethi by a decent margin of 55,000 votes, bringing down Rahul’s vote share from 46.7% to 43.8%. This was despite the support Rahul received from the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, as the two parties did not field any candidates. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha earlier this year, won Rae Bareli comfortably but her victory margin was also drastically reduced – 3.52 lakh in 2014 to 1.67 lakh in 2019.
Also read: Rahul Gandhi for Rae Bareli, an Old Congress Worker to Fight Amethi
Political changes in Amethi and Rae Bareli
The situation has got even more sticky for the Congress in the traditional pocket borough seats of its ruling Gandhi family. Since 2019, several Opposition leaders, legislators and local-level elected representatives in Amethi and Rae Bareli have either switched sides to strengthen the BJP or tacitly backed it due to various reasons. The recent Rajya Sabha elections in UP provided us a glimpse of how the BJP planned on fortifying its presence in these constituencies. Out of the half-a-dozen SP MLAs across the state who cross-voted in favour of BJP or remained conspicuously absent, three were from Amethi and Rae Bareli. The dent in the Opposition helped the BJP win an extra seat.
While SP MLAs Manoj Pandey (Unchahar seat in Rae Bareli), also the party’s chief whip in the UP Assembly, and Rakesh Pratap Singh (Amethi), openly backed the BJP, another SP legislator from Amethi Maharaji Prajapati abstained from voting. Prajapati is the wife of jailed and convicted former cabinet minister Gayatri Prajapati, a former aide of SP founder Mulayam Singh, whose family has been under the radar of the Enforcement Directorate for alleged money laundering, illegal mining and disproportionate assets. The central agency has raided Prajapati’s residences and attached his properties and bank accounts. In December 2022, the ED attached Prajapati’s property in Lucknow and Amethi in connection with a 2019 money laundering case.
Earlier this year in January, the ED searched several properties linked to the former minister in Mumbai. Then in March, the ED again raided Prajapati’s properties at over a dozen locations across UP, Delhi and Maharashtra in connection with the probe in an illegal sand mining case. Prajapati, who has a rags-to-riches story, is an OBC leader. In 2022, Maharaji had won the Amethi Assembly seat on a sympathy wave after the BJP convicted her husband in a gang rape case, which the family and his party described as a political vendetta. In 2022, the BJP won three out of the five Assembly seats in Amethi. The other two were won by the SP’s Maharaji Prajapati and Rakesh Pratap Singh. The latter has openly switched sides, while with the ongoing ED pressure on the Prajapati family, a big question mark has also been raised on which way their loyalty will swing in the 2024 election.
That is not all. Influential Thakur leader Sanjay Sinh, the erstwhile ‘Raja of Amethi’ also switched over to the BJP after the 2019 election, along with his wife Ameeta Singh. His former wife Gareema Singh won the Amethi Assembly election in 2017 on a BJP ticket. In 2022, Maharaji Prajapati had defeated Sanjay Sinh.
In both its governments in UP, since 2017, the BJP has nominated a legislator from Amethi as a minister.
The political situation in Rae Bareli has also changed since 2019. First, Aditi Singh, the Rae Bareli Sadar Congress MLA and daughter of the late Akhilesh Singh, a Thakur strongman, officially joined the BJP in 2021, right before the state elections. Aditi retained her seat in 2022 on a BJP symbol. Her father had won the constituency five times since 1993.
In February, Manoj Pandey, who was promoted as the Brahmin face of the SP by Akhilesh Yadav, also switched loyalties to the saffron camp. On May 3, soon after Rahul Gandhi was declared the Congress candidate in Rae Bareli, Pandey’s son Raj Pandey joined the BJP in the presence of UP deputy CM Brajesh Kumar Pathak. Manoj Pandey is a three-time MLA from Unchahar, one of the five Assembly segments in Rae Bareli LS.
Recently, 11 local-level SP leaders, including SP MLA Rakesh Pratap Singh’s brother, also joined the BJP. These included present and former zilla panchayat members, present and former block presidents and a former zilla panchayat president. Two weeks ago, the BJP publicised that a Congress leader Vikas Agrahari from Amethi, a state coordinator, had joined its camp. However, to the BJP’s embarrassment, Agrahari soon denied that he had joined the BJP and insisted he was with the Congress.
The Gandhi siblings’ indecision about contesting from their bastions in central UP also comes in the backdrop of their party’s fading electoral impact in these constituencies, held by several members of the Gandhi family, including Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Feroze Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. The two constituencies are a testament to the political legacy and prestige of the Nehru-Gandhi family and also represent the party’s philosophy in the heart of the nation’s most important state politically. But they are no longer easy seats, as Rahul Gandhi’s reluctance to contest from Amethi and the baffling delay in declaring candidates have indicated without any doubt. The political atmosphere and equations have changed in Amethi and Rae Bareli ever since the Modi government came to power at the Centre and the BJP won consecutive majorities in the state. The Gandhis’ failure to course-correct following the debacle in 2019 and a taken-for-granted attitude towards voters, further emboldened the BJP to corner the Congress in its own backyard.
Gandhi family’s association with the constituencies
Rae Bareli and Amethi have been associated with the family for several decades. Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s younger son, first won it in 1980. However, after his death in an air crash, his elder brother Rajiv Gandhi, who would go on to become prime minister after his mother’s assassination in 1984, stepped in to contest from Amethi. After winning in a 1981 by-poll, Rajiv won again in 1984, 1989 and 1991. After Rajiv’s assassination, his old friend and Gandhi family loyalist, Captain Satish Sharma, contested from Amethi in a by-poll and won. Sharma repeated his win in 1996 but lost to the BJP’s Sanjay Sinh in 1998.
A year later, however, the Congress retrieved the seat, as Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv’s widow, beat Sinh by a huge margin. In 2004, the year when the Congress-led UPA came to power in the country, Rahul Gandhi made a successful electoral debut from Amethi. He won again in 2009 and 2014. The Congress candidate in 2024 in Amethi is Kishori Lal Sharma, the Gandhi-family loyalist who managed their constituencies over the last four decades. Sharma had worked closely with Satish Sharma. “Our family has had a long association with Kishori Lal Sharma ji. He has always been dedicated to serving the people of Amethi and Raebareli. His passion for public service is an example in itself,” Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on X after Sharma’s nomination.
Party workers in UP had demanded that Vadra replace her mother in Rae Bareli while Rahul should contest again in Amethi and exact revenge on Irani. However, it turns out, it is Rahul who succeeds his mother in Rae Bareli. Feroze Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s husband, won the seat in 1952 and 1957. Indira herself won in 1967 and 1971 before losing to socialist leader Raj Narain in 1977 in the aftermath of the Emergency imposed by her government. She sprung back to win the seat in 1980. Between 1984 and 1996, Nehru-Gandhi family members Arun Nehru and Sheila Kaul, held the seat. In 1996 and 1998, however, the BJP breached the fort before Captain Satish Sharma wrested it back for the grand old party in 1999. From 2004 to 2024, the seat was held by Sonia Gandhi.
It is true that Assembly elections don’t always reflect the people’s mood in general elections and the two constituencies have always been considered high-profile, prestige seats, rendering ordinary caste calculations almost irrelevant. But numbers do not lie. The ground under the Congress’ feet has been slipping fast.
In 2007, out of the 10 Assembly segments in Amethi and Rae Bareli today, the Congress won seven while the BJP had zero. Congress ruled the country then.
Things changed drastically in 2012, when the SP won seven seats and the Congress was reduced to two. The BJP got a zero again. In 2017, however, the picture turned on its head as the BJP breached the Gandhi family bastions winning six out of 10 seats. The Congress and the SP, who fought as allies but engaged in friendly fights on some, won two each. The Congress lost all five seats that come under Amethi Lok Sabha, in alarming signs for Rahul Gandhi. In 2022, the SP won six out of the 10 seats in Rae Bareli and Amethi LS. The BJP won four. The Congress failed to open its score. The popular vote comparison in both Amethi and Rae Bareli in 2022 also shows the Congress in a difficult situation. In the five seats of Rae Bareli LS, the Congress received only 1.40 lakh votes. In comparison, the BJP secured 3.81 lakh. The SP received 4.02 lakh votes.
In Amethi, considered trickier among the two seats primarily due to the dogged and belligerent nature of Irani, who has the full backing of the Centre, the Congress performed equally badly. It got only 1.42 lakh votes across five Assembly segments. In comparison, the BJP received 4.18 lakh votes and the SP in second position with 3.52 lakh votes.
The delay in announcing candidates in Rae Bareli and Amethi shows that the Congress lacked a clear plan and strategy about winning from there through traditional means. After dilly-dallying for weeks, it made political sense for the Gandhis to opt for an easier battle in Rae Bareli than put prestige at stake in Amethi against union minister Irani. That would have nailed Rahul Gandhi to campaign harder in Amethi, cutting down on his precious time in campaigning against Modi across the country. The party has avoided a pyrrhic battle. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s decision to not enter the electoral fray also seems to be inspired by the same strategy.
However, there has been a massive gap in the approach between the two national parties. Smriti Irani started honing Amethi as her constituency despite losing in 2014 – a BJP office-bearer in Amethi told me in 2019 that she had visited the constituency more than 40 times in five years. Irani recently also got herself a residence in Amethi, to cement her position as the ‘local’ MP.
In contrast, the Gandhis, by fielding a family manager, have practically surrendered Amethi without even a fight, perhaps to save their face from a consecutive upset. In July 2019, in his first visit to Amethi after the loss, during an indoor meeting with workers, Rahul described it as ‘home-coming’ and promised his ‘Amethi parivar’ that he would visit more often. However, apart from campaigning for the 2022 polls and passing by the district recently during a Nyaya Yatra, Rahul has rarely spent time in Amethi in the last five years.
Rahul Gandhi’s poster in Amethi.
In fact, after the Amethi defeat, Rahul focused more on Wayanad in Kerala, which elected him to Parliament. The BJP milked this to the hilt and projected it as a sign of betrayal of Amethi. The saffron party has once again tried to take mileage out of the situation, by showcasing it as a sign of fear of defeat. “Arey daro mat, bhago mat,” Modi said at a rally in West Bengal, targeting Rahul Gandhi for shying away from Amethi. A smug Irani shared Modi’s video on social media.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took to X to explain why Rahul Gandhi chose Rae Bareli and not Amethi. He said the decision was taken after “much decision” and as “part of a larger strategy.”
“Today, Smriti Irani’s only identity is that she contests elections from Amethi against Rahul Gandhi. Now, her political relevance is over. Instead of making meaningless statements, Smriti Irani will now have to answer about local development: closed hospitals, steel plants and IIITs,” said Ramesh.
His explanation may not convince everyone. Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi by 55,000 votes. That’s easily reversible in a state like UP which has constituencies with over 20 lakh voters.
Ramesh’s explanation on why Vadra did not make her electoral debut made more sense. “Priyanka ji is campaigning vigorously and is single-handedly silencing Narendra Modi’s lies. The way she responded to the canards that the PM was spreading on the abolition of estate duty in March 1985 was a stinging rebuke. That is why it was important that she should not be limited to just one constituency,” said Ramesh.
Since Rahul Gandhi already had the safety of the Wayanad seat, political workers in UP feel he should have taken the leap and contested in Amethi to send a message of confidence to his voters and supporters. UP still has five rounds of voting left – 64 seats, with many contested by the Congress. If K.L Sharma defeats Irani in Amethi, it would be a major upset. However, if she repeats her 2019 performance, and possibly even better it, Congress’ decision-making ability would be put under further scrutiny. One factor that could play a role in deciding the outcome is the BSP fielding candidates in both constituencies.
The BSP is a double-edged sword and sometimes it is difficult to estimate which way it will cut. In 2019, it was assumed that the collective support of the SP and BSP would see Rahul and Sonia through. However, there is a strong perception on the ground that the BJP was able to win over several BSP coordinators and village-level representatives. In absence of a BSP symbol, the BSP core Jatav vote is often susceptible to manipulation. This time the BSP has named candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli. Will that prevent the BSP’s traditional voter, a part of which is also anti-Congress, from swinging over to the BJP? The results on June 4 will tell, but for now, a small anecdote showcasing how the BJP considers Rae Bareli and Amethi as high-value constituencies in its quest to outmuscle the Congress in the country.
On March 11, 2017, the day the results of the UP Assembly election were declared, I was in the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh headquarters in Lucknow trying to get a sense of the numbers from a senior BJP leader and Amit Shah’s pointsman in the state, Sunil Bansal. The results were still trickling in but it was clear that the BJP was winning a historic 2/3 majority with over 300 seats. My conversation with Bansal was interrupted after one of his assistants rushed in with a phone, murmuring, “Rashtriya Adhyaksh ji.” It was Amit Shah on the line from New Delhi.
Bansal, the state’s general secretary (organization), listened with full attention, only to respond “ji, ji”. After hanging up, he instructed his assistant to fetch the details of the results in the ten constituencies in Amethi and Rae Bareli. Shah wanted the results of the Gandhi-Nehru bastion so that he could highlight it in his press conference scheduled in Delhi a little later. And as anticipated, in his press conference, while congratulating his party for the win, Shah mentioned only two districts out of the 75 in UP – Amethi and Rae Bareli. The BJP won six out of 10 seats, he pointed out gleefully. “It is a matter of great joy for us. In 2014, our performance on these two seats was not good. We have improved there too and almost secured a majority even there. And this indicates the direction of change in which the country will go in the coming days,” said Shah.
