In this election, if there’s a clear winner after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, it would be BJP’s Smriti Irani, who has handed Congress President Rahul Gandhi a shocking defeat in the Gandhi family bastion Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
Gandhi conceded defeat in a press conference even before the counting in Amethi had been completed.
“I respect the verdict of the people of Amethi and I congratulate Smriti Irani on her victory. I hope she treats Amethi with love,” he said.
The Gandhi family has represented the seat nine times and this is only the second time that a family member has been defeated in the seat. The last time this happened was in 1977 when Sanjay Gandhi lost to Ravindra Pratap Singh of the Janata Party in what was an anti-Congress wave due to the anger against the Emergency.
Why Irani’s Win is Significant
- She had lost to Gandhi in 2014 by a margin of 1.07 lakh votes, in the middle of a Modi wave but came back to win the seat five years later.
- She won the seat despite the fact that both the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party were supporting Gandhi in the seat. In 2014, while the Samajwadi Party didn’t put up a candidate against Gandhi, the BSP was in the fray and its candidate polled 7 percent votes.
- Her win all but destroys the Priyanka Gandhi factor in Uttar Pradesh. Priyanka had been given charge of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, including Amethi, but the fact that she couldn’t ensure the victory of her own brother would invite a great deal of brickbats.
How Irani Pulled Off an Upset
- Over the past five years, she visited Amethi regularly and even initiated a number of projects there as HRD minister and later textile minister in the Narendra Modi government. Through this she tried to present herself as someone who was working for Amethi despite not being from there and attacked Gandhi for not doing enough for the constituency.
- The caste and community factor also came to her advantage. Amethi has a substantial population of upper caste, non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav Dalit voters, who have become key vote banks of the BJP. On the other hand, Muslims, Yadavs and Jatavs – the main support bases of the Mahagathbandhan – are not present in large numbers here. Therefore even the Mahagathbandhan’s support couldn’t help Gandhi much in Amethi.
- Like much of the country, it is the Modi factor that lies behind the BJP’s victory and Irani, too, may have benefited from it in Amethi. Opposition parties in the Hindi heartland didn’t have an answer to the prime minister’s appeal and Gandhi in Amethi is no exception.
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