It’s ‘Gandhi parivar ki guarantee’ for Cong loyalist Sharma in Amethi
Umesh Raghuvanshi
LUCKNOW: In the hot seat of Amethi, (about 130 km southeast from here), the erstwhile Congress bastion where the party has fielded loyalist KL Sharma and where Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi is leading a battle of prestige from the front, it is the Gandhi family’s decades-old association with the constituency and the ‘guarantee’ that Priyanka will always stand by people that Sharma is banking on.
As KL Sharma, accompanied by All India Congress Committee general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, reaches Paraiya Namaksar in Salon assembly segment to campaign there, he assures the people that he would serve the people with full devotion and the doors of AICC general secretary will always remain open for them.“I will serve you in the same way the Gandhi family served you. You will not get any opportunity to make complaints and if you have any complaints Priyanka Gandhi will be there supervising me. Her doors will always be open for you,” assures KL Sharma addressing a public meeting in Amethi on Friday.
Those present at the public meeting mostly raise “Priyanka Ji sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain” slogan (We are with you Priyanka Gandhi in your fight). Priyanka Gandhi is obviously fighting the election for KL Sharma and she has made the poll for Amethi LS seat a fight between Gandhi family and union minister Smriti Irani, who is seeking re-election from LS seat as a BJP candidate.
As Priyanka went for campaign to hold a public meeting at Nandurbar in Maharashtra and roadshow at Chavella, Tandur and Zahirabad, Kamareddy in Telangana on Saturday, KL Sharma addressed about 11 public meetings in Amethi. He spoke about projects that had not been implemented by the BJP government in the constituency and assured the people that he would fulfill dreams of former PM late Rajiv Gandhi, who won the Amethi LS seat in 1981, 1984, 1989 and 1991.A bastion of the Nehru-Gandhi family till 2019, Amethi, where Priyanka’s elder brother and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi lost the poll to Irani, goes to poll in the fifth phase on May 20, 2024. Rahul Gandhi is now a candidate from neighbouring Rae Bareli, the only Lok Sabha seat that Congress won (electing the party’s top leader Sonia Gandhi) in 2019. Sonia Gandhi, who won Rae Bareli in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019, has now taken RS route via Rajasthan.
“I am grateful to the Gandhi family, especially Priyanka Gandhi, for making me a (Congress) candidate from Amethi. I have got an opportunity to serve the constituency that was once represented by the ideal person whom I served,” Sharma tells the people at most of his public meetings.