Recalling the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and her fight to win the Amethi seat against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister Smriti Irani said fighting polls in Amethi was a “revolt against a system that didn’t function”. The BJP MP on Saturday also attacked Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who were in Amethi in Uttar Pradesh today, and said their ‘yatra’ for upcoming UP assembly polls is “going nowhere”.
Responding to a question by News18 during the launch of her new book, she said, “Today the siblings were in Amethi. They had to get people from Lucknow and Sant Kabir Nagar and Chhattisgarh. Someone had to burn a lot of fuel. The fact that you were in a constituency for 50 years and have to drive 50 people out from Lucknow to Amethi speaks volumes about them and their relationship with my constituency. That Yatra is going nowhere.”
The BJP MP recalled that in 2014 when she was directed to go to Amethi, she had requested her seniors to place a call to her family and seek permission as this decision will not only impact her but all those who love her. “I knew it was throwing myself to being devoured. I knew this was opening myself up to criticism but there was so much goodwill for that one family in Lutyens Delhi that I would be torn to smithereens. When I went to Amethi, I had only 22 days to fight the election and the BJP had never got more than 30,000 votes ever. And in 21 days, we polled 3 lakh votes which means there were 2.7 lakh people waiting for somebody to show up. I showed up and it is for them that I stayed back,” Irani said.
Irani also shared an incident where she was accosted by four people who tried to threaten her in Amethi’s Jagdishpur. “They were trying to give me some very wise advice. That when Sanjay Singh and Ravindra Pratap Singh fought from here then they were shot at and when Maneka Gandhi fought from here, her clothes were torn. They said ‘aap par bhi goli chal sakti hai’ (you can also be shot). I told them ‘mujhpe goli chalenge, toh Modi ki 400 seat aayengi’ (If you shoot me, then Modi will get 400 seats). I sat back in the car and called my family and told them I may get shot but I do not see any hospital here. Imagine my family sat with friends and planned the route to take me back if I get shot,” Irani said.
“That is the reality of me fighting Amethi. For me, it was a fight for these 2.7 lakh people who were waiting for someone to show up. It was a revolt against a system that did not function. I just became the sutradhar, I just became the weapon,” Irani said.
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