KL Sharma Becomes First Non-Gandhi Congress Leader In 25 Years To File Amethi Nomination
KL Sharma has become the first non-Gandhi Congress leader to stake claim to the Amethi Lok Sabha seat in 25 years. Rahul Gandhi was the last of the family to hold the seat.
KL Sharma, who filed his nomination for the Amethi seat Lok Sabha election on Friday, became the first non-Gandhi Congress leader to do so in 25 years. Having worked for the party for four decades, Kishori Lal Sharma, better known as KL Sharma, has finally stepped out of the shadows as the Congress decided to grant him the opportunity to reclaim the Gandhi family bastion lost by Rahul Gandhi in 2014.
#WATCH | Uttar Pradesh: Congress leader Kishori Lal Sharma files his nomination papers from Amethi for the upcoming #LokSabhaElection2024
— ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2024
BJP has fielded Union Minister Smriti Irani from Amethi. pic.twitter.com/DU72NFgONV
Soon after he was declared the Congress candidate for Amethi, KL Sharma thanked the Gandhi family and party president Mallikarjun Kharge. He also said Rahul Gandhi had not run away. Rather he was fighting a battle for the entire nation.
#WATCH | "No member of the Gandhi family contesting from Amethi in itself is an indication that Congress has accepted its defeat from Amethi even before elections, says Amethi MP & Union Minister Smriti Irani.#LokSabhaElection2024 pic.twitter.com/44JllWXcsH
— ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2024
Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said, "He [Kishori Lal Sharma] knows every house, worker and family in Amethi... Traditionally, a senior member of the [Gandhi] family contests Raebareli... At present, if we have any supreme leader in Congress, it is Rahul Gandhi. That is why he has come here [Raebareli] from Amethi."
#WATCH | Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh: On Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's candidature from Raebareli and Kishori Lal Sharma from Amethi, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari says, "... He (Kishori Lal Sharma) knows every house, worker and family in Amethi... Traditionally, a senior member of… pic.twitter.com/nnl8iaELmA
— ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2024
Reacting to the development, KL Sharma's political opponent Union minister Smriti Irani said: "No member of the Gandhi family contesting from Amethi in itself is an indication that Congress has accepted its defeat from Amethi even before elections."
Former Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam, who is now in the BJP, said, "Rahul Gandhi will not let Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contest elections. There is a huge conspiracy in the family and the party against Priyanka Gandhi. She is the victim of a conspiracy in the family and the party. Rahul Gandhi should have contested from Varanasi against PM Modi if he did not want to contest from Amethi."
#WATCH | Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh: On Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's candidature from Raebareli, Former Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam says, "I had already said that Rahul Gandhi will not let Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contest elections... There is a huge conspiracy in the… pic.twitter.com/5GRUYoQTNv
— ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2024
Amethi And Gandhi Family
The Amethi seat in Uttar Pradesh has mostly been contested by the Gandhis since 1980 from the Congress, with the exception of the period between 1991 and 1998. Rajiv Gandhi's brother and Indira's son Sanjay Gandhi was the first Gandhi family member to win the seat in 1990. In the bypoll that followed his death, Rajiv Gandhi won the seat in 1981.
He won the subsequent polls in 1984, 1989, and 1991. However, after his assassination in 1991, the Congress fielded Gandhi family loyalist Captain Satish Sharma, who held on to the seat till 1998. That year, Sanjay Sinh of the BJP won the seat for a brief period.
But in the 1999 Lok Sabha election, Sonia Gandhi wrested it back for the Congress in her electoral debut. In 2004, she moved to Raebareli to make way for her son Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. Rahul held on to the seat till 2019 when Smriti Irani bested him.
Now, the Congress has pinned its hopes on KL Sharma to gain the seat back for the party and the Gandhi family.
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