Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will make a day-long visit to Amethi in Uttar Pradesh on July 10, his first trip there since losing the Lok Sabha seat to the BJP’s Smriti Irani. His sister, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, was likely to go with him.

Purpose of the visit

Gandhi is expected to meet party workers to understand why the Congress lost the family’s traditional seat by about 55 thousand votes. At a key meeting of the Congress Seva Dal in Lucknow on Monday, leaders also stressed the need to rebuild the party organisation.

What the party’s review found

The Congress had earlier set up a two-member panel to study the defeat: KL Sharma, a representative of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and AICC secretary Zubair Khan. Its findings blamed a lack of cooperation from Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party workers on the ground. The two parties, allied for the Lok Sabha election, had not fielded a candidate in Amethi as a gesture of support for the Congress.

Local leaders reportedly told the panel that, with no BSP candidate in the fray, BSP votes went to the BJP instead of the Congress, even though Gandhi polled more votes than in 2014. A senior leader pointed out that Gandhi received 4,08,651 votes in 2014, that the BSP candidate that year had won around 57,000, and that the 2019 margin of defeat was around 55,000.

Local Congress chief Yogendra Mishra said BSP voters had shifted to the BJP. He added that Rakesh Pratap Singh, the SP MLA from Gauriganj, and the son of Gayatri Prajapati, who had been mining minister when the SP was in power, had backed the BJP; Singh switched his support to Gandhi on his leadership’s instructions, but too late.

KL Sharma did not accept this explanation and said more feedback meetings would be held with party workers in the Tiloi and Gauriganj assembly segments.

See also: Indian National Congress | Constituencies

Originally published on 8 July 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us