Amethi-Rae Bareli: Congress loses 8 of 10 seats in Gandhi bastion

Six out of 10 assembly seats in Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies -- long considered Congress strongholds -- have gone to the BJP while two went to the Samajwadi Party, leaving the grand old party gasping with just two.

A beaming Amit Shah, the BJP President, in his first media comments after the party's grand success in the state elections, drew specific attention to its performance in the twin Lok Sabha constituencies, held by party chief Sonia Gandhi and her deputy and son Rahul.

It was a complete washout for the Congress in Rahul's Amethi Lok Sabha constituency, comprising the assembly seats of Amethi, Tiloi, Jagdishpur, Gauriganj and Salon.

The party managed to win two of the five assembly constituencies of Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat -- Rae Bareli and Harchandpur -- while losing Sareni, Bachhrawan and Unchahar.

In Rahul's constituency, the Congress managed to come in at second spot in Jagdishpur, Gauriganj and Salon, was beaten to third spot in Tiloi and came in a miserable fourth in Amethi itself.

In Sonia's constituency, the party came in at No.2 in Bachhrawan, No.3 in Sareni and a distant fourth in Unchahar.

In the prestigious Amethi constituency, the erstwhile "queen" of the local principality Garima Singh of the BJP defeated SP's rape-accused absconding minister Gaytri Prasad Prajapati. Congress candidate Ameeta Singh, the current "queen" and wife of senior leader Sanjay Singh, came in a poor fourth behind the BSP candidate.

"Of 10 seats, we won six seats by big margins and this is making us very happy. We didn't do well here in 2014. But from now, politics will take a new direction in Uttar Pradesh," Shah said.

--IANS

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