Didi vs bhaiya: Smriti Irani, Rahul Gandhi in Amethi today amid 2019 rematch buzz

Amethi is set for a political showdown on Monday with both Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Union minister Smriti Irani scheduled to arrive in this high-profile Lok Sabha constituency on the same day amid the buzz that they are again set to contest same seat in the parliamentary polls due in April-May.

Irani had wrested the Amethi Lok Sabha seat from the Congress in 2019, defeating Rahul Gandhi in the Modi wave.

While Rahul Gandhi, along with Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, will enter Amethi as part of his ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Irani will arrive on a four-day visit to her constituency as part of her Jan Samvad Vikas Yatra.

This will be the first time since the 2022 U.P. assembly polls when the two leaders had campaigned on the same day but at different places for their party candidates in Amethi, a Lok Sabha constituency the Congress has lost only thrice till now.

“Definitely Amethi and Rae Bareli are not mere constituencies for us. They are home to our party leadership and surely someone from the (Gandhi) family will contest,” UP Congress chief Ajay Rai said while stating that BJP scheduling Smriti’s programme on the same day in Amethi showcased “growing restlessness in the BJP camp.”

On Monday, Rahul is expected to enter Amethi from Pratapgarh as part of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. He will hold a roadshow as well as a public meeting in a region that elected him for three consecutive terms before his 2019 loss in the Modi wave. Smriti will resume her Amethi Jan Samvad Vikas Yatra as part of which she has been touching base with people across all the five assembly constituencies that make up her Lok Sabha.

After an overnight stay, possibly near Fursatganj, Rahul and his yatra will enter Rae Bareli, the only Lok Sabha seat in U.P. that the Congress won in 2019. The buzz about Rahul’s sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contesting the seat is now gaining currency after Sonia Gandhi’s decision shift to the Rajya Sabha and her assertion that Gandhis will continue their association with the region.

The BJP had arranged for the Ayodhya visit of some 4000 people on Saturday and more visits are being arranged for people to visit the newly inaugurated Ayodhya temple. Smriti is also set to hold a house warming function of her newly built house in Amethi on February 22.

She had mostly based her 2019 LS campaign on the theme that while Rahul had largely been an inaccessible MP and, if she won, she would stay among the masses. Through the housewarming event, Irani is expected to subtly tell the masses that as she had kept all her promises made to the people in 2019 Lok Sabha campaign. As their “didi”, she would seek another chance to serve the people. The “didi” coinage came as a counter to “bhaiya” that was used to refer to Rahul Gandhi here till 2014.

“We are not tourists. We have kept our word and after the housewarming, you will see didi living here,” said Vijay Gupta, Smriti Irani’s Lok Sabha representative in Amethi.