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BJP |
Smriti Irani |
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Congress |
Kishori Lal Sharma |
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BSP |
Nanhe Singh Chauhan |
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Amethi is one of the most popular parliamentary constituencies in India. The seat is mostly represented by a member of the Gandhi Nehru family. This Lok Sabah seat in Uttar Pradesh has been represented four times by Rajiv Gandhi who won it in 1980, 1984, 1989 and 1991. Dynastic politics, though an antithesis of democracy, is an integral part of Indian politics, though loved by people.
The constituency has been won by Congress except in 1977, 1998 and 2019. In 1977 Ravindra Pratap Singh won the seat for Janata Party. Sanjay Singh and Smriti Irani won the seat for BJP in 1998 and 2019 respectively.
Sanjay Gandhi, who lost the seat to Ravindra Pratap Singh in 1977 general elections for the sixth Lok Sabha thanks to the backlash Congress faced as a result of imposition of emergency, won the seat in 1980 by defeating him. He became the first member of the family to win the Amethi Lok Sabha seat.
After Sanjay’s death in a plane crash in June 1980, his brother Rajiv Gandhi, a reluctant entrant into politics, won the seat in the bye-election by defeating Sharad Yadav of Bhartiya Lok Dal.
In 1984 general elections, Rajiv won the seat by defeating his sister-in-law and Sanjay Gandhi’s wife Menaka Gandhi by a huge margin.
In 1989 general elections, Raj Mohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, contested against Rajiv Gandhi in which the former was utterly defeated. The electoral battle was billed as the fight between Jawaharlal Nehru’s grandson vs Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson. Congress under Rajiv lost Lok Sabha elections and V P Singh became Prime Minister.
In general elections of 1991, Rajiv won the Amethi seat by defeating Ravindra Pratap Singh of BJP. After the death of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 during the elections, the bye-election to the seat was won by Captain Satish Sharma. In 1996 general elections Satish Sharma emerged victorious by defeating Raja Mohan Singh.
In 1998 Lok Sabha elections, Sanjay Singh , once a close confidante of Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi, switched sides and contested the Amethi Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate and defeated Satish Sharma of the Congress. However, in the next general elections in 1999 Sonia Gandhi defeated Sanjay Singh who later returned to the Congress.
In 2004 Lok Sabha elections which saw the coming of UPA to power Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, won the Amethi seat. He went on to win the seat in 2009 and 2014. He was defeated by Smriti Irani of BJP in 2019.
