'Thankful to Gandhi Family; People of Amethi Rectified 2019 Mistake': Kishori Lal Sharma to News18 after Defeating Smriti Irani

“Stray cattle menace”, “unemployment”, and “local issues” turned out to be the major factors that made the people of Uttar Pradesh’s high-profile Lok Sabha constituency Amethi vote for a change. In an interview with News18, Congress’s “giant-slayer” Kishori Lal Sharma who snatched the seat from union minister and BJP’s incumbent MP Smriti Irani by more than 1,50,000 votes said resolving the stray cattle menace, long-standing local issues, and the matter of unemployment among the Amethi youths will be among his top priorities.

Sharma, a longtime loyalist whom the Congress fielded from Amethi, the first non-Gandhi candidate for the party from the seat in 25 years, also thanked the family for supporting him throughout and the locals for voting him to power. “I am thankful to the Gandhi family for considering my candidature from Amethi and for supporting me against all odds. I also thank the people of Amethi, who voted for me. I will try my best to meet their expectations. I am happy that by choosing me, people rectified their 2019 mistake,” Sharma told News18.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Congress’s candidate from Amethi, Rahul Gandhi, lost to BJP’s Smriti Irani.

“I would hold a meeting with the locals and chalk out a detailed list of issues, which I would redress on priority. It largely includes the stray animal menace, resolving long-standing local issues, and a strategy to generate employment for the local youths,” said Sharma.

Sharma said his victory is also an answer to those who made the “peon” remark against him after he was declared as the Congress’s candidate from Amethi. He was taking a dig at the BJP’s Raebareli candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh, who called him a “peon of the Gandhi family”. Singh lost the election to Congress candidate Rahul Gandhi by more than 3,90,000 votes.

Sharma, who hails from Punjab’s Ludhiana district has a lengthy connection with the Gandhi family and the people of Amethi. “Kishori Bhaiya, I never had any doubts. I was sure from the beginning that you would win. Hearty congratulations to you and my dear brothers and sisters of Amethi,” Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra posted on social media site X.

Sharma had joined Congress at the age of 22. He said that he has been associated with the Gandhi-Nehru family since 1982 after he graduated from Arya College in Ludhiana and joined a Youth Congress Camp in his district. Back then, Pawan Bansal, who used to be the president of the Youth Congress in Punjab, sent him to Delhi in 1983 and he looked after late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s famous 20-point programme, people associated with Sharma said.

Sharma’s hard work and diligence led to him being made part of a team picked by late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who brought them to his Lok Sabha constituency Amethi to look after the party affairs, back in 1984. Initially, Sharma was assigned the task of managing party affairs in one and a half blocks: the Bahadurpur block and half of the Toloi block. However, soon he was assigned a whole assembly seat, then three state assembly seats, then a Parliament seat, and so on.

However, in 2012 Sharma left Amethi as he became a secretary of the All India Congress Committee at the national level. But, in 2014, when there was no strong hand available during the Lok Sabha elections, he chose to come down to Raebareli as a representative of Sonia Gandhi.

Sharma since the very beginning was confident that the people of Amethi, who are well acquainted with him, will pick him.

The Congress has won Amethi 11 times in the 14 Lok Sabha elections held for the seat till date. The first Congress candidate to win from Amethi was VD Bajpai in 1967, and then again in 1971. In 1977, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay Gandhi contested the seat for the first time but lost. In 1980 though, Sanjay won his first Lok Sabha election from the seat. After he died months later, his elder brother Rajiv Gandhi won the seat in a bypoll. In the 1981 Amethi by-election, Rajiv Gandhi won by a huge margin of over 2 lakh votes against Lok Dal candidate Sharad Yadav.

Rajiv Gandhi, who went on to become India’s Prime Minister in 1984 after the assassination of his mother Indira Gandhi, represented Amethi multiple times, winning elections in 1984, 1989, and 1991.

Following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, Satish Sharma, a close aide of the family, won the by-election for the Amethi seat. He was re-elected in 1996. Two years later, Sharma lost to BJP’s Sanjay Singh in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections. In 1999, Rajiv Gandhi’s wife Sonia Gandhi entered active politics with a victorious debut from the Amethi constituency. Five years later, she vacated the seat for her son Rahul Gandhi, and moved to Raebareli. In the next three elections, Rahul Gandhi carried forward the legacy of the Gandhis in Amethi, before his shock defeat to BJP’s Smriti Irani in 2019.

Since the first Lok Sabha election following the second delimitation, the Congress party has lost the Amethi seat only thrice, in 1977, 1998, and 2019.