Amethi district Congress chief Yogendra Misra also supported the charge that the SP and BSP did not cooperate with the Congress even though their leaders had announced support for Rahul Gandhi.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi (File Photo: IANS)
The two-member Congress Committee probing the reasons behind the defeat of their President Rahul Gandhi in his family borough Amethi, has been told that the non-cooperation of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party units was responsible for the defeat.
Congress Secretaries Zubair Khan and K.L. Sharma, who are UPA chaiperson Sonia Gandhi’s representatives in Rae Bareli, were informed in “clear terms” that the SP and BSP units in Amethi did not cooperate with Congress and a large segment of their voters went with BJP.
“It is simple arithmetic. Rahul Gandhi got more votes in 2019 (4.13 lakhs) than he did in 2014 (4.08 lakh votes). The BSP candidate in 2014 had polled 57,716 votes and if these votes had come to the Congress, the party would have won. BJP’s Smriti Irani defeated rahul Gandhi by a margin of over 55,000 votes,” said a local Congress leader.
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Amethi district Congress chief Yogendra Misra also supported the charge that the SP and BSP did not cooperate with the Congress even though their leaders had announced support for Rahul Gandhi.
“Former SP Minister Gayatri Prajapati’s son Anil Prajapati openly campaigned for Smriti Irani. SP MLA from Gauriganj, Rakesh Singh, went with the BJP in order to save the position of his block pramukhs and zila panchayat members,” said Yogendra Misra.
Rakesh Singh, the SP MLA, however, denied the charge.
BJP’s Smriti Irani had scripted history in Lok Sabha elections 2019 by defeating three-time Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi, wresting a seat that served as a Gandhi family bastion since 1980, except 1998.
Smriti Irani managed to rake in 4,68,514 while Rahul Gandhi could only pick up 4,13,394 votes.
In 2014, Irani had lost to Gandhi by just over a lakh votes.
This time, the BJP won 303 of the 542 seats on which elections were held. The NDA ended with a tally of 353 seats.
(With inputs from IANS)
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