The Gandhi family’s man Friday of 40 years gets the Congress Amethi ticket

The candidate chosen by the Gandhi family to carry the baton forward on their turf Amethi is a soft-spoken close aide going back to the time of Rajiv Gandhi, earning his stripes for his election management and coordination skills.

Now, after decades of managing the family’s elections in both Amethi and Rae Bareli and acting as a mediator between the family and its constituents, 63-year-old Kishorilal Sharma will be fighting his first election.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Sharma acknowledged his long association with the Congress. “I have served the region for 40 years and know Amethi very well. I came here in 1983 as a Youth Congress representative to work for Rajiv (Gandhi) ji and have remained here since then. Except 1981, I managed all of Rajiv ji’s remaining elections.”

Priyanka, whose name was said to be in contention for either the Amethi or Rae Bareli seats, welcomed the choice of Sharma. “Our family has had long association with Kishorilal Sharma ji. He has always been dedicated to serving people of Amethi and Rae Bareli,” she posted on X.

Later in the day, she told media persons in Amethi, “He is a very good choice. He has been handling Amethi for a long time. When I had managed election for the first time in 1999, we had done it together. He knows every village and lane of Amethi.”

Party sources said that Sharma, originally from Ludhiana in Punjab, was first picked up under a programme launched by Rajiv, who had made his electoral debut from Amethi in 1981, to identify a young brigade from outside the region to monitor development works in his seat.

As part of this, Sharma, then in his 20s, was initially made in-charge of the Tiloi Assembly constituency under the Amethi Lok Sabha seat.

Gradually, Sharma became