Rahul Gandhi did not contest from Amethi Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh because he knew he could not win, women and child development minister Smriti Irani, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s returning candidate in the seat once considered the bastion of the Gandhi family, says in an interview with Saubhadra Chatterji. Irani says Amethi has seen more development under her watch than in the preceding 10 years. Edited excerpts:
There are two narratives about the Lok Sabha election in Amethi. The first one is that you have got a walkover.
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I think the Gandhi family not wanting to contest Amethi is a clear indication that they are losing the seat. If there was any semblance of victory, somebody from the family would have definitely fought. It is my personal responsibility to ensure that I reach out to every voter, irrespective of the work that I have done, and it is the voters’ right that I, as a public representative, go to them from one house to another, and that is the responsibility I’m fulfilling.
I recognised that the Gandhi family has proclaimed its own defeat. However, I will ensure I carry forward the legacy of Narendra Modi and go door to door, village to village.
The second narrative is what Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, that your political relevance is over because you are not fighting against a Gandhi family member.
The fact that Ramesh or anybody else in the Congress believes in sycophancy as a political practice that they had to dedicate much of their time to strategise against me is a huge political achievement. It is like saying Rahul Gandhi will not play chess with Garry Kasparov so that Kasparov loses relevance. It is like saying Rahul Gandhi won’t play cricket with Tendulkar so that Sachin Tendulkar’s relevance goes away. There is a Hindi word for such ill-informed comments: hasyaspad (laughable).
In your public meetings, you seem to be maintaining two planks: the government’s welfare programmes, especially the free foodgrains, and free vaccines. You’re also attacking Rahul Gandhi for quitting Amethi.
If you notice the conversations, they range from doing the work of building roads, houses and toilets. The people know how I was available during Covid to help them. I was available, going from village to village in Amethi, which is valued a lot by the citizens.
Insofar as the Congress party goes, I think if we had Gandhi contesting, the comparison of work would have been stark because of the five years that I worked as an MP, two years were spent confronting Covid. Yes, which means functionally, I had three years. But the amount of work we managed to do as compared to Gandhi’s 15 years of absenteeism, I think would have been too stark for them to respond to.
The Congress has alleged the BJP wants 400 seats because it wants to amend the Constitution and possibly do away with the reservation system.
You are in a place which has witnessed the impact of the Emergency era. If you think of the history of 1989 and how in an election against Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, the Gandhi family defeated him by booth capturing, you will recognize the hypocrisy and hollowness of the claims of the Congress party.
There is one thing common in your speeches; you are deliberately avoiding your rival candidate Kishori Lal Sharma’s name.
I feel the Congress party, by making sure that Rahul Gandhi vacates the seat, has already declared their defeat in Amethi. Like I said, the Congress is a party whose senapati (general) has run away. No matter what the Congress sycophants say, what can’t be denied in the political history of this seat is that in 2019, I defeated the Congress president.
This is not the first time that Gandhi has run away. He ran away the first time in 2019 (fighting from Kerala’s Wayanad). He’s done so now. We always knew he never had the courage.
When you fought your first election in 2014, and today, 10 years later, how would you like to recap the story of Amethi?
All these roads didn’t exist in 2014. All the broad roads including the bypasses, it was all built by me in the past five years. Anybody, especially journalists who’ve been here for a decade and a half, can see the stark difference. I can count the work that I have done village-wise. So as you saw, in every block that I go to, I am telling you even the number of metres of naalis (drains) that I have built. It is that level of detail to which I have gone.
In your speeches you are alleging the Congress will examine people’s wealth. This is a charge that Congress has denied.
I think the Congress leadership has said, which is evidently available now on audiovisual formats, that they will evaluate individual wealth. These are words spoken by Rahul and Priyanka. Now the sycophancy ecosystem says that both Rahul and Vadra’s words are not to be valued and not to be taken seriously.
In your assessment, is the Ram Temple going to be a major issue for the BJP?
The Prime Minister has said the issue of Ram Mandir is a matter of faith. It is not a political instrument. And I think the fact that the temple was built by Ram bhakts (devotees) and not the government speaks volumes about the commitment of millions of people across the world.
As a woman and as the women and child development minister, how do you react to the allegations of mass rape against Prajwal Revanna?
I’m sure the Congress government in Karnataka knew of the case and did not act in time. Law and order is a state subject. The National Commission for Women falls under my ministry. It has already sent a notice to the Congress government. You know about Sandeshkhali (in West Bengal) and the horrors that were wrought upon women there. It has now got international attention but Rahul Gandhi hasn’t said a word about the victims. That’s because he doesn’t want to damage his relationship with Mamata Banerjee. So, respect for women is an issue of political convenience for the Gandhi family.
