‘Irani Heard Our Grievance, Which Nobody Cared About’: Amethi residents Say Gandhi Took Them For Granted

One constituency that surprised political pundits the most on the day of the Lok Sabha elections results was Amethi, where BJP leader Smriti Irani defeated the Congress party president Rahul Gandhi by a margin of over 55,000 votes.

The constituency, which was a Gandhi family bastion for long, voted differently in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Many loyal voters of the Congress shifted their loyality as they were tired of the VVIP culture and Rahul Gandhi taking his voters for granted without addressing their actual problems.

“Rahulji thought people of Amethi are his murid (sworn followers) and he would come, wave his hand and we would vote him for just a glimpse, no matter what he did,” said Ram Prakash, a truck driver, as reported by The Hindu.

According to the report, Gandhi was accused of meeting a select group of powerful people during his customary visits to Amethi while Smriti Irani, despite being defeated in 2014, kept in constant touch with the people there and visited the constituency for as many as 42 times since 2014.

Irani toured the rural areas of Amethi and addressed local infrastructural problems, according to the locals.

“Smriti Irani heard our grievance, which nobody cared about before,” said Satyanarayan Mishra, who voted for BJP.

Besides, the welfare measures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi like free cooking gas, toilets, pucca houses and electricity connections won over many poor voters across castes.

Rahul Gandhi choosing to contest from one more constituency, Wayanad, besides Amethi also did not go down well with the voters.