AMETHI: Congress President Rahul Gandhi lost his traditional Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani, of the BJP, by a margin of 38,449 votes.
Irani polled 3,11,992 votes while Gandhi, who had been winning the seat since 2004, got only 2,73,543 votes.
The election in Amethi was closely contested with Irani having maintained her lead since morning. It was only in the afternoon that the margin between her and Rahul Gandhi began increasing.