AMETHI SANGRAM – HINDI

A district near Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh, Amethi was made a Lok Sabha constituency in 1967. For five decades since then, it remained emblematic of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s grip over Indian politics. The Congress Party won the seat multiple times between 1980 and 2014. Rahul Gandhi held the seat for the longest period, from 2004 to 2019, and prior to him, the seat had also been held by Sonia Gandhi, Rajeev Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi. However, in 2019, Rahul Gandhi was overthrown by Smriti Irani, and with that, the Gandhis lost a family bastion, one they perhaps took for granted.

Amethi Sangram chronicles the events that led to BJP’s candidate Smriti Irani’s victory in Amethi in 2019. It looks into the reasons that led to the disillusionment of the people of Amethi with Congress. The book begins with BJP’s landslide victory in 2019, and traces its feet backwards, recounting alongside Smriti Irani’s journey in politics and the role played by the RSS in preparing the ground for BJP in Amethi.