JULY 21, 2019 • THE WEEK 41ARVIND JAINlink connecting Unchahar, Salon
and Amethi and setting up of two
Kendriya Vidyalayas. Also, an IIIT
that was functioning for 11 years
has been closed down, a mega food
park has been cancelled and a unit
of Hindustan Paper Mills has been
shifted from Amethi to Maharashtra,
they added.
Still, the swirling doubts about
Rahul’s commitment to Amethi were
made the focus of Irani’s campaign,
dubbing him as an ‘absentee MP’.
When he decided to contest from
Wayanad, Kerala, she said it was a be-
trayal of the trust reposed in him by
Amethi’s people. And, she fashioned
herself as the highly approachable
‘didi’ as against ‘Rahul bhaiya’, who
was not easily accessible. Her claims
of having visited the constituency
more number of times than Rahul
since 2014, when she lost to him, also
seem to have struck a chord.
The sustained efforts of the local
BJP team in ensuring delivery of
Central schemes, too, worked in her
favour. “In the last five years, Irani
has done more work than what has
been done in the last 15 years. Be it
gas connection or pucca houses, the
villages have benefited a lot,” said
Vishnukant Tripathi, a farmer from
Gauriganj.
However, the Congress finds hope
in history, pointing out that Indira
Gandhi lost Rae Bareli in 1977, but
made a strong comeback three years
later. “Rahulji got 4.13 lakh votes,
which is more than the 4.08 lakh
votes he got in 2014. So, Amethi
is still with Rahulji. The people of
Amethi will never be able to feel the
same kind of love and affection for
Irani as they have for the Gandhi
family,” said Congress leader Akh-
ilesh Pratap Singh.
But making a comeback will be a
challenge, considering Irani is here
to stay, literally. A stone’s throw
away from the building where Rahul
met party workers is the plot that
Irani has picked for her own house
in Amethi.Rahulji was right in saying that he was
let down by the organisation. Those
who call the shots in Amethi are
complacent and have conducted the
election campaign over phone.
—Anand Pratap Singh, Congress worker from Salonfinally looking inwards for its defeat
in Amethi. But the party will have
to make drastic changes if it wants
to remain in the fight. The defeat
to Irani came as a psychological
blow—Rahul lost to Irani by 55,000
votes, and this was only the third
time that the Congress has failed to
win the seat. A major reason for the
poll verdict is said to be the restless-
ness of its residents with the slow
pace of development.
“People remember the legacy of
Rajiv Gandhi and feel that maxi-
mum development took place when
he represented the constituency.
Factories came up, agriculture got a
boost, infrastructure was improved,”
said political expert Prof Ram Baha-
dur Verma. “It was now increasingly
being felt that being a VIP constitu-
ency was not translating into much
benefit for the people.” This showed
in the decline in the Congress’s vote
share in Amethi in recent years.
Rahul’s margin of victory fell from
3.7 lakh votes in 2009 to around
1.07 lakh votes in 2014. In the 2017
Assembly elections, the Congress
failed to win a single seat in the con-
stituency.
However, Rahul’s supporters said
that several projects begun by him
have been stalled, including a railHERE TO
ASSURE
Rahul Gandhi
arrives in
Gauriganj to
meet party
workers