Akhilesh hints at Amethi contest in 2024 poll, worry for Congress

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 6

Days after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the TMC would go it alone in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday hinted that his party would field a candidate from Amethi, the Lok Sabha segment currently represented by Women and Child Development Minister and historically by members of Congress’ first family, the Gandhis.

Importance of segment for party

• Since 1967 when the Amethi LS segment was formed, the Congress won all but two elections there and held the segment for 48 years until 2019
• The only time it did not win was post-Emergency in 1977 and 1998, when local royal Sanjay Singh defeated Congress’ Satish Sharma
• A year later, Sonia bagged the segment from the BJP

“I was deeply saddened to see the condition of poor women of Amethi. VIPs have always won and lost here, and yet the condition of Amethi is such. If this is the case here, what to say of the rest of the state? Next time, Amethi will not elect big people but those who have large hearts. The SP takes a pledge to eradicate poverty from Amethi,” Akhilesh said in a tweet.

The SP and BSP pre-poll alliance had in the 2019 Lok Sabha election not fielded any candidates against the Congress in Amethi (Rahul Gandhi) and Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi). While Rahul, who had until 2019, held Amethi for 15 years, lost to Smriti Irani by over 50,000 votes, Sonia had won in Rae Bareli, making her the sole Congress MP from a state that sends 80 MPs (the highest) to the LS.

The SP didn’t field any candidate against Rahul in Amethi in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019.

SP’s declaration would mean bad news for the Congress, considering the party’s strategy for Amethi remains unclear since Rahul’s defeat.

In 2019, Rahul had contested from Amethi and Kerala’s Wayanad both, losing in the former segment and winning in Wayanad. Since then, questions have been asked of the Congress if Rahul would return to Amethi to challenge Irani.

Akhilesh’s remarks come as a spanner in Congress wheels in regard to Amethi.

He tweeted about the segment after a ground visit yesterday when he had gone there to attend the marriage ceremony of party leader and former UP minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati’s daughter.

SP chief’s unilateral announcement in respect of a seat, long considered a family bastion of Gandhis, also does not augur well for opposition unity ahead of the 2024 poll.

Meanwhile in Maharashtra, NCP chief Sharad Pawar batted for opposition unity and said he would make attempts to ensure Maha Vikas Aghadi partners (NCP, Congress and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena) fought Assembly and LS elections together. Pawar was speaking after meeting newly elected Congress MLA from Kasba Peth Assembly constituency in Pune city Ravindra Dhangekar.