AMETHI: The announcement of the name of Kishori Lal Sharma as Congress candidate from Amethi against Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani took many by surprise both in the Congress and BJP camps as they had expected Rahul Gandhi to be in the fray from his bastion which he had lost in 2019.
“I am confident of my victory as the top party leaders will come here to campaign for me. I am the same Kishori Lal who had come to Amethi with Rajiv Gandhi in 1983. I have learnt from the Gandhi family that my sole aim and the only religion is to serve people with empathy and compassion,” says the Congress candidate adding that he takes pride in getting selected by the Gandhis for Amethi.
For Amethi, Kishori Lal Sharma is not an unknown face. Those aware of Amethi politics know him as the manager and representative of the Gandhis since 1983 when the then Amethi MP Rajiv Gandhi had brought him along as a soldier of the youth brigade. Many in Amethi remember him from the days when he used to pedal a cycle around Amethi. They saw him as a common man and a Gandhi loyalist who has been entrusted with the tough task of taking on the sitting MP Smriti Irani.
On the challenge from his rival, KL Sharma sounds confident of the support of people, who he claims, have accepted the decision of the Congress high command that a person among them has got the ticket in Amethi. “I consider myself as the sewak of Gandhis,” he says.
Local Congress leaders see it as a strategic move by the party not to let the Amethi election turn into a Smriti vs Rahul contest. They want it to be an issue based poll and feel Smriti Irani is no match for the stature of Rahul Gandhi despite his 2019 loss.
Popular among the locals as a low profile, humble person with good behaviour, Sharma hails from Ludhiana, Punjab, and his association with the Congress deepened after Rajiv Gandhi’s death in 1991. He began working with Captain Satish Sharma in Amethi and then also worked very closely with Sonia Gandhi in Amethi where he was in charge of the constituency when she contested in 1999. For a few years, he was in charge of both the Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies where Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi used to be in the fray. Later, he moved to Rae Bareli with Sonia Gandhi as Rahul had his own team.
Now with his family, including his wife and one of his two daughters, camping with him in Amethi and conducting his campaign, Sharma sounds confident that top Congress leaders including the Gandhis will leave no stone unturned to ensure the success of his campaign as they believe that he can defeat Smriti Irani and reclaim the family bastion.
He refuses to respond to the diatribe of BJP candidate Smriti Irani who, along with the BJP top leadership, is claiming that by not contesting from Amethi, Rahul Gandhi has already conceded defeat. “I don’t want to respond to her. Let people decide. It will amount to arrogance if we comment on the result of the election beforehand. Let’s wait for June 4. “
He claims that people will vote for him as there has been no development in Amethi during the last five years.
On the delay in the announcement of the candidate and commencement of the Congress campaign in Amethi, Sharma says, “The organisation has been working silently on the ground and the management related to electioneering is already over. Our frontal organisations in Amethi work round the year. It's not that we get active only when elections are there.”
Speaking about the main issues on the ground, Sharma says the non-fulfilment of promises by the BJP during the last 10 years has annoyed people. “Unemployment, Agniveer, stray cattle and price rise are big issues for common people. Instead of making value addition to the existing infrastructure developed during the previous Congress governments, the BJP closed the factories and institutions in Amethi,” he says.
