After ouster of Rahul Gandhi, Amethi’s decades-old demand finally gets fulfilled under Smriti Irani

One of the biggest victories for the BJP during the 2019 General Elections was Smriti Irani’s triumph against the heir apparent of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi. As Amethi broke away from decades of Nehru-Gandhi family rule, Smriti Irani inflicted a telling blow upon Rahul Gandhi in the latter’s own bastion defeating him with a massive margin of 55,000 votes.

Now, the constituency which has suffered under the burden of handling the first family of the Congress for decades has already started to yield rich dividend for the historic turnaround last year.

Announcing the fulfillment of a four decade old demand in the constituency, Irani has tweeted, “43 years ago he came to Amethi as a 4th year MBBS student to help in the campaign against the then scion; today with the blessings of PM @narendramodi Ji, he fulfilled Amethi’s 4 decades old demand of a Government Medical College. Thank you to the good doctor @drharshvardhan Ji.”

Actually, the Uttar Pradesh government had sent a proposal to the Centre, recommending a new medical college in Amethi, which was accepted by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday.

Amethi remained a bastion of the Nehru-Gandhi family for two long phases- 1980 to 1991 and 1999 to 2019, yet while the family developed by leaps and bounds, the constituency did not. The Congress’ Prime Ministerial candidate in-perpetuity Rahul Gandhi himself remained the Member of Parliament from Amethi for 15 long years since 2004.

All this while, Amethi remained as miserable as it was in the 1980s before the Nehru-Gandhi family made the constituency its bastion. Despite the VVIP MPs representing it for decades, Amethi didn’t get a single medical college or engineering college in the entire constituency, it took a Smriti Irani for a medical college to be established in Amethi.

While Rahul Gandhi enjoyed constant vacations and sabbaticals, Amethi suffered in the lack of basic requirements like electricity and education. It is among the poorest, most underdeveloped of constituencies.

Even in terms of social indicators, Amethi lagged behind some of the poorest constituencies in the country like Purulia in West Bengal. For example, neo-natal deaths in Purulia were 46 per 1000, and in Amethi the number was 83 per 1000. Also, fatality below five years stood at 89 per 1000 in Purulia and in Amethi it stood at 160, showing that not only were people in the constituency bereft of basic amenities, but also living in abject misery at a socio-economic level.

The Nehru-Gandhi family’s ‘Amethi’ model of development was one of noxiousness and apathy, something that was finally rejected after almost four long decades in 2019. As Amethi has finally progressed onto the path of brisk development under its newly elected, hardworking MP Smriti Irani, the constituency might just become the symbol of anti-VVIPsm and a signal for the electorate of Raebareli, another constituency that has borne the scourge of carrying the burden of the Nehru-Gandhi family for decades.