Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra has expressed his desire to contest the general election from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, saying that people of the constituency want someone from the Gandhi family to represent them in the Lok Sabha this time.
Talking to mediapersons, Mr. Vadra said people of Amethi were not happy with their current MP, Union Minister Smriti Irani. He said for years, the Gandhi family had worked hard for the development of the people in places like Rae Bareli, Amethi, Sultanpur, and Jagdishpur.
Mr. Vadra, the husband of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, said the Amethi voters had realised that it was a mistake to elect Ms. Irani as their MP. This time they wanted a Gandhi family member to contest the Lok Sabha election and that they would ensure victory by huge margin. He said people expect that his entry into politics should be as a candidate from the Amethi constituency.
Mr. Vadra said he had participated in a political campaign for the first time in 1999 along with Ms. Vadra in Amethi and developed a bonding with its residents over a period of time.
In an interview to a television channel on Wednesday, he had said that people from different places, including his home town Moradabad in the Uttar Pradesh and Telangana, asked him to fight the election from their constituency. Stating that he wanted to see Ms. Vadra in Parliament first, he said he was ready to contest the election against Ms. Irani in Amethi. In 2019, she had defeated Mr. Rahul Gandhi by a margin of 55,120 votes in the same constituency.