UP poll results: Congress losing family bastions – Rae Bareli and Amethi

New Delhi, Mar 10: In yet another setback to the Congress, the grand old party is heading towards losing its family bastions of Rae Bareli and Amethi in the 2022 assembly elections.

In the UP elections, it is nowhere in the competition as the fight is mainly between the BJP and SP. Even in its home turf, the party has failed to put up a fight despite Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi clocking 209 rallies/roadshows in the UP elections.

In Rae Bareli, Aditi Singh, who won the last election from Congress and joined the BJP in 2021, is leading. As per the Election Commission website, she has secured 39,253 votes while her nearest rival Ram Pratap Yadav from SP has garnered 35,428 votes. Dr Manish Chauhan from Congress is in third place with 4,725 votes.

In Amethi, Samajwadi Party candidate Maharaji Prajapati is leading and she has secured 30,249 votes while the BJP's Sanjay Sinh has got 26,725 votes. Congress' Ashish Shukla has got 4,739 votes.

Presently, Amethi Lok Sabha constituency comprises five Vidhan Sabha (legislative assembly) segments - Tiloi, Salon, Jagdishpur, Gauriganj and Amethi - and the Congress has failed to put up a good performance in all the assembly constituencies.

In Tiloi, the BJP candidate Mayankeshwar Sharan Singh (with 30,540 votes) is ahead of SP's Mohd Naim (21,837 votes) while the Congress candidate Pradeep Singhal (7,127 votes) is in third place.

In Salon, there is a tough fight between the SP's candidate Jagdish Prasad (57,338 votes) and BJP's Ashok Kumar (52,933 votes) with the Congress candidate Arjun Kumar getting 7,141 votes.

Whereas in Jagdishpur, BJP's Suresh Kumar (31,896 votes) is ahead of Congress' Vijay Kumar (25,578 votes).

SP's Rakesh Pratap Singh (18,662) and BJP's Chandra Prakash Mishra Matiyari (17,672) are having a neck-and-neck fight while Congress candidate Fateh Bahadur (4,615) is in third place.

Among the five constituencies, Congress has given fight, so far, in only in Salon assembly constituency. Rae Bareli was the only Lok Sabha seat won by the Congress in 2019 in UP even as the all-important Amethi constituency fell to the BJP with Smriti Irani defeating top leader Rahul Gandhi.

In the 2017 assembly elections, only two Vidhan Sabha seats, Rae Bareli (Sadar) and Harchandpur, remained loyal to Congress. They were won by Aditi Singh and Rakesh Singh for the party.
Both winners from the last time have now switched sides to the BJP and have been fielded against the Congress from the same seats.