Although Smriti Irani initially took the lead, after about two hours of vote counting, Congress party candidate Kishori Lal Sharma took the lead in the VIP Amethi Lok Sabha seat.
Amethi, once considered a stronghold of the Congress party and an impenetrable fort, could not withstand the BJP wave in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
In the 2019 elections, Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani won the Amethi seat by defeating former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who had been a long-time MP from this constituency.
Smriti Irani’s victory marked a significant shift in this traditional Congress bastion.
Ever since former Congress President Sonia Gandhi became MP, Kishori Lal Sharma has been responsible for handling and overseeing groundwork in Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, making him well-known among locals.
According to a report by news agency IANS, Kishori Lal Sharma aligns well with the caste dynamics of the region. Amethi is predominantly composed of Dalits (26 per cent), Muslims (20 per cent), and Brahmins (18 per cent). The Congress party believes that KL Sharma can leverage these caste equations to his advantage.
