Can Rahul Gandhi take the Amethi call? With the Samajwadi Party on board, empirical numbers look in his favour. The parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh has five assembly segments: Tiloi, Salon, Jagdishpur, Gauriganj, and Amethi. Together, the Bharatiya Janata Party garnered 4,18,700 votes in these five assembly segments in 2022. On average, it was 41.5% of the total votes. The SP received 3,52,475 votes (35.27%) and the Congress bagged 1,42,952 votes (14.17%).
With the INDIA bloc on board now in Uttar Pradesh, if we combine the SP and Congress votes in all five assembly constituencies of the Amethi parliamentary seat, it comes out to be 4,95,427 votes or 49.44% of the total valid votes. This is 76,727 votes or 7.94% more than the BJP’s. In fact, if we refer to the data from the last four assembly elections in the constituency, the combined vote share of the SP and Congress has always stood out to be higher than the BJP’s.
In the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP emerged victorious on three seats, followed by SP’s two wins. In 2017, when the SP and Congress fought together in a failed alliance, the BJP scored four seats over the SP’s single win. In 2012, the SP was the winner in three seats, followed by the Congress’s two seats. In the 2007 assembly elections, the Congress bagged three seats, followed by the SP’s and BSP’s one each.
But when it comes to the Congress and SP coalition, it is advantageous for both parties. With their votes counted together, “SP+Congress” won four seats while the BJP’s tally was reduced to just one seat in the 2022 assembly elections.
The 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections saw the first SP and Congress pre-poll alliance. From the very start, it seemed to be mired in a limbo of inaction. Cadres of the parties were not united, and despite having an alliance, both parties fielded candidates against each other in 14 assembly constituencies, including Amethi’s Gauriganj and Amethi. The SP received significantly more votes than Congress in these two assembly constituencies. When their votes were counted together, the coalition emerged victorious in two seats, reducing the BJP’s victory count to three seats. In the 2007 and 2012 assembly elections, the combined votes of the SP and Congress were enough to win all five assembly seats in the Amethi parliamentary constituency.
The Lok Sabha election data also indicates that the Amethi seat was a Gandhi family bastion until 2014, except for a few years. Rahul Gandhi served as the Lok Sabha MP from the seat between 2004 and 2019 before losing the general election to BJP’s Smriti Irani by around 6% votes.
However, Congress strategy makers would have to consider some other pressing concerns.
The election schedule might have saved the Congress from one repercussion. Wayanad, Rahul’s present Lok Sabha constituency, is scheduled to vote on April 26 in the second phase of the ongoing elections, along with other Kerala seats. Amethi will vote on May 20 in the fifth phase, with its notification issued on April 26 and the last date for filing nominations being May 3.
So, even if Rahul decides to contest from Amethi, he still has time. If decided earlier, it might have impacted his votes in Wayanad, with strong contenders like Communist Party of India candidate Annie Raja and BJP’s Kerala unit president K Surendran. The election campaign might have influenced the vote flow in Rahul’s favour, with Congress, its ally IUML, and the Left Front parties CPI(M) and CPI being strong political forces in Wayanad and the surrounding districts. Annie Raja, the wife of CPI general secretary D Raja, is a prominent and well-respected figure in Kerala’s political circles. Surendran is a senior politician and was the face of the BJP during the Sabarimala agitation against the entry of young women.
There might have been an insider vs outsider campaign, with Annie Raja and K Surendran being Keralites and Rahul Gandhi being an “outsider”. Additionally, past assembly election results of the assembly constituencies show that the Muslim vote bank, which is in the majority in the Wayanad parliamentary constituency, supports both the Congress and Left Front parties. According to Census data from 2011, the Wayanad parliamentary seat is expected to have around 46% Muslim and 12% Christian populations.
The next question is a significant one that Congress strategists need to consider.
It pertains to Uttar Pradesh’s internal political environment. The Ram temple consecration in Ayodhya in January 2024 is an important election issue not only in UP but also across all Hindi heartland states and northern India. It was part of the BJP’s manifesto and the party will be in the driver’s seat on this, with the Congress and other rival parties being on the back foot. The Congress, SP, and many other parties decided not to attend the pran pratishtha event on January 22.
Also, Akhilesh Yadav is leading his first electoral fight without his father. Popularly known as Netaji, Mulayam Singh Yadav passed away on October 10, 2022. A three-time UP chief minister and India’s former defence minister, Mulayam was a political force in UP. Akhilesh began his political career on the ground when Mulayam decided to make him UP’s chief minister after the SP won the 2012 assembly polls.
Later, the Yadav family had a feud, with Mulayam and Akhilesh seemingly going their separate ways. Mulayam believed the SP-Congress alliance for the 2017 assembly polls was unnecessary and his party was in a winning position to retain its government. He mentioned that because of the alliance, many hardworking SP workers couldn’t get tickets. Mulayam campaigned on a smaller scale in that election. The result? Akhilesh Yadav’s ruling SP lost the polls by a large margin. The party could win just 47 assembly seats out of the 403 in the state, with a 21.82% vote share. The Congress won seven seats with a 6.25% vote share, while the BJP bagged 312 seats with a 39.67% vote share.
Later, Mulayam and Akhilesh patched up, but by the time of the 2022 assembly elections, the senior Yadav was in poor health and could not campaign much beyond a few appearances. At 82, he was taken in a wheelchair to cast his vote in the presidential election in July 2022. In the 2022 assembly polls, though the SP increased its seats to 111 with a 32.06% vote share, it could not prevent the BJP from getting a majority and retaining its government, a first in the state since 1985. The BJP won 255 seats with a 41.29% vote share. The Congress was reduced to two seats with a 2.33% vote share despite contesting 399 seats.
Yogi Adityanath became the only CM with a five-year term to retain office in Uttar Pradesh. Clearly, it was a victory for his governance. The result also conveyed that Akhilesh Yadav fell short of effectively continuing the political heritage established by his father.
The 2024 Lok Sabha election is a survival battle for Akhilesh Yadav. But it is also true that Lok Sabha elections in the state have been dominated by the BJP’s significant numbers only since 2014. The BJP, along with its allies, won 73 out of the 80 seats in the state, along with a 42.65% vote share. The SP won five seats along with a 22.35% vote share, while the Congress managed two seats with a 7.53% vote share.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, though the seats of the BJP and its allies were reduced to 64, the vote share crossed the 50% mark. The BJP got 49.98% votes and its ally Apna Dal (Soneylal) got 1.21%. The SP and BSP fought together and won 15 seats, but the SP could not surpass the number of five seats with a reduced vote share of 18.11%. The BSP won 10 seats with 19.43% votes. The Congress was reduced to just one seat in Raebareli with a 6.36% vote share after the loss in Amethi.
In the case of the Amethi parliamentary constituency, the SP has not fielded any candidate here since 1999. That year, the SP candidate finished fourth with just 2.67% of the votes. So, there is no empirical data available to capture trends in the performance of an SP Lok Sabha candidate in Amethi since 2004.
Congress strategists need to consider all these factors before deciding on Rahul’s candidature from Amethi.
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