It’s ‘Gandhi parivar ki guarantee’ for Congress’ Sharma in Amethi

“I will serve you in the same way the Gandhi family served you. You will not get any opportunity to make complaints and if you have any complaints Priyanka Gandhi will be there supervising me. Her doors will always remain open for you,” assured KL Sharma addressing a public meeting in Amethi on Friday.

Lucknow: In the hot seat of Amethi, (about 130 km southeast from here), the erstwhile Congress bastion where the party has fielded loyalist KL Sharma and where Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi is leading a battle of prestige from the front, it is the Gandhi family’s decades-old association with the constituency and the ‘guarantee’ that Priyanka will always stand by the people that Sharma is banking on.

Priyanka Gandhi is obviously fighting the election for KL Sharma and she has made the poll for Amethi Lok Sabha seat a fight between the Gandhi family and union minister Smriti Irani, who is seeking re-election as a BJP candidate . (HT FILE)

As KL Sharma, accompanied by All India Congress Committee general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, reaches Paraiya Namaksar in Salon assembly segment to campaign there, he assures the people that he would serve the people with full devotion and the doors of AICC general secretary will always remain open for them.

“I will serve you in the same way the Gandhi family served you. You will not get any opportunity to make complaints and if you have any complaints Priyanka Gandhi will be there supervising me. Her doors will always remain open for you,” assures KL Sharma addressing a public meeting in Amethi on Friday.

Those present at the public meeting mostly raise “Priyanka Ji sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain” slogan (We are with you Priyanka Gandhi in your fight). Priyanka Gandhi is obviously fighting the election for KL Sharma and she has made the poll for Amethi Lok Sabha seat a fight between the Gandhi family and union minister Smriti Irani, who is seeking re-election from the Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate in 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

As Priyanka Gandhi went for campaign to hold a public meeting at Nandurbar in Maharashtra and roadshow at Chavella, Tandur and Zahirabad, Kamareddy in Telangana on Saturday, KL Sharma addressed about 11 public meetings in Amethi. He spoke about the projects that had not been implemented by the BJP government in the constituency and assured the people that he would fulfill dreams of former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi, who won the Amethi Lok Sabha seat in 1981, 1984, 1989 and 1991.

A bastion of the Nehru-Gandhi family till 2019, Amethi, where Priyanka’s elder brother and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi lost the poll to Irani, goes to poll in the fifth phase on May 20, 2024. Rahul Gandhi is now a candidate from neighbouring Rae Bareli, the only Lok Sabha seat that the Congress won (electing the party’s top leader Sonia Gandhi) in 2019. Sonia Gandhi, who won Rae Bareli in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019, has now taken Rajya Sabha route via Rajasthan.

“I am grateful to the Gandhi family, especially Priyanka Gandhi, for making me a (Congress) candidate from Amethi. When she told me that I would fight the election, I told her the people want you (Priyanka Gandhi) to contest the poll. But she said this was the family’s decision (Gandhi family). I became very emotional because I have got an opportunity to serve the constituency that was once represented by the ideal person whom I served,” Sharma tells the people at most of his public meetings.

“I got this feeling to serve the people from Rajiv Gandhi ji in 1983. I saw in Rajiv Gandhi how a leader should serve his/her constituency. I felt fortunate and thought about how I would be able to take care of the constituency. Priyanka ji encouraged me and said she would make me fight the election. She came to bless me in my nomination. You have accepted me because I have been serving you for the past 41 years. I give you my word that I will not breach this trust and serve you with the core of my heart,” he says.