In an interesting development ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Republic TV has reported that BJP is likely to field current MP from New Delhi constituency, Meenakshi Lekhi, against Sonia Gandhi from the traditional bastion of Raebareli, a Congress stronghold for years.
BJP has made it clear that it will give the Congress top brass, especially Sonia Gandhi a run for her money. While it is crystal clear that Smriti Irani is out to give a living nightmare to Rahul Gandhi with both her work as well as her campaigning for the prized constituency of Amethi, it seems that BJP has decided to wrest the Raebareli constituency as well, from which Sonia Gandhi is the current MP.
Raebareli constituency in Uttar Pradesh has been one of the strongholds of Indian National Congress since independent India. Apart from Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi of the Nehru Gandhi dynasty has been elected from the same.
The only two occasions when this constituency was Congress-free were in 1977 and 1996 when Raj Narain and Satish Sharma defeated the Congress candidates to serve as MPs. In fact, Raj Narain is probably the only non-Congress politician who had successfully ousted a serving MP from the Nehru Gandhi dynasty, riding on an anti-Gandhi wave generated by the dark days of the emergency.
However, it’s been two decades since Raebareli was Congress-free. Besides, for all her controversies, Sonia Gandhi is still a powerful politician, who has considerable authority in Raebareli. As such, if Meenakshi Lekhi is fielded against Sonia Gandhi, she needs to pull out all stops to ensure that Sonia Gandhi gets defeated this time. Interestingly, Meenakshi Lekhi had caused a massive uproar, when she won her constituency in 2014; defeating both sitting MP from Congress and ex-UPA minister Ajay Maken and the then AAP leader Ashish Khaitan by a huge margin of over 1.5 lakh votes.
As of now, BJP hasn’t announced this decision formally. However, if Lekhi is fielded, it will send a bold signal for both the opposition and the masses that BJP is all set to begin with the process of their cherished dream of a ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’.