After some heart-stopping moments in the early rounds, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi managed to hold his fort in Amethi, while his mother, Sonia, had it relatively easy in neighbouring Rae Bareli.
Facing a strong challenge from BJP’s actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani, Mr. Gandhi won a hugely reduced margin of 1.08 lakh votes.
The face-off in Amethi started with an intensive campaign against Mr. Gandhi led by Aam Aadmi Party’s Kumar Vishwas. The main plank of the poet-turned-politician’s campaign was the lack of development in Amethi and the “arrogance” of the Gandhi scion.
However, soon it became a three-cornered contest after Ms. Irani entered the fray. Ms. Irani launched aggressive attacks against Mr. Gandhi and capitalised on what the AAP had started.
For all the noise created by him, Mr. Vishwas secured a paltry 25,527 votes.
Ms. Irani herself expressed surprise at her performance. She was initially dubbed as a non-threat by the Congress with Mr. Gandhi’s sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, dismissing her as “Who Smriti?”
Ms. Irani got a huge boost after BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi held a rally in her support in Amethi and referred to her as his “little sister”.
In Rae Bareli, however, the going was seemingly comfortable for Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who romped home by a margin of over 3 lakh votes. Ms. Gandhi polled 5.26 lakh votes while the BJP’s Ajay Agrawal secured 1.7 lakh votes.
Even though Ms. Vadra took the responsibility of the campaign in Rae Bareli on her mother’s behalf, Ms. Gandhi was never under any real threat. The debate in her constituency was always about three lakh-plus victory margin, which she has retained.
