Amethi Lok Sabha constituency

Amethi is one of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. This constituency covers the entire Amethi district and was created in 1967. Like its neighboring constituency Rae Bareli, it is considered to be a bastion of the Indian National Congress. Its first member of parliament (MP) was Vidya Dhar Bajpai of the Indian National Congress (INC) who was elected in 1967 and held his seat in the next election in 1971. In the 1977 election, Ravindra Pratap Singh of the Janata Party became its MP. Singh was defeated in 1980 by Sanjay Gandhi of the INC. Later the same year, Gandhi died in a plane crash. This forced a by election in 1981 which was won by his brother, Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi went on to represent this constituency until 1991, when he was assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The subsequent by election held the same year was won by Satish Sharma of the INC. Sharma was re-elected in 1996. Sanjaya Sinh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defeated Sharma in the 1998 election. The widow of Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi represented this constituency from 1999 to 2004. Her son, Rahul Gandhi, was elected in 2004. He was the fourth MP from the Nehru–Gandhi family since 1980 to represent the seat. Gandhi held the seat till the 2019 election when he was defeated by a margin of 55,000 votes by the BJP's Smriti Irani. Irani was defeated in 2024 by a margin of over 1.67 lakh votes by Kishori Lal Sharma of the INC.