Sweetest wins for Congress: Wrests Amethi back from Smriti, Rahul crosses Sonia’s margins in Rae Bareli

In a major setback for the BJP, Union minister Smriti Irani looked set for a huge loss to the Congress’s K L Sharma, who had pulled ahead by 1.66 lakh votes in Amethi as per leads till 6 pm. In neighbouring Rae Bareli, a Congress party bastion for decades, senior leader Rahul Gandhi is leading by 3.90 lakh votes — a number that surpasses his mother Sonia Gandhi’s previous margins from the seat.

The Amethi win comes as a big boost to the Congress, with Rahul having lost the seat to Irani in 2019 by 55,000 votes. The loss was a big blow to the Congress, which had won the seat all but once since 1980. In 2014, Rahul had defeated Irani by a margin of 1.03 lakh votes.

Hoping to wrest its bastion back, the Congress fielded Sharma, a Gandhi family loyalist of over three decades in Amethi.

With Sharma leading by a comfortable margin, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, who had taken charge of the campaign in Rae Bareli and Amethi, said she never had any doubts about his victory.

Alongside an old photograph of her with Sharma, Priyanka wrote on X, “ Kishori bhaiya, I never had any doubts, I was sure from the beginning that you will win. Hearty congratulations to you and my dear brothers and sisters of Amethi.”

Sharma credited his win to the Gandhi family, alliance partner Samajwadi Party and the people of Amethi.

“The credit for my victory goes to the Gandhi family as this is the land of the Gandhi family. I fulfilled the responsibility assigned to me by the Gandhi family,” Sharma said.

“People of Amethi have sent the message that humility will prevail. I express my gratitude to the people of Amethi as well as Gandhi family for this victory,” he told The Indian Express.

In Rae Bareli, which was the only seat the Congress won in 2019,