Amethi is also the constituency Smriti Irani has her eye on (File)
Union minister Smriti Irani on Monday responded to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's 15-minute debate challenge on Rafale fighter jets with a barb on Amethi. The challenge was to Prime Minister Narendra Modi - the latest of several issued by the Congress chief.
"If he wants to challenge, he can come to PMO. Let him speak on the issues related to the country without a paper," the minister said, adding, "It will be a big thing if he could even tell you the names of the Gram Panchayats in Amethi".
Amethi is the pocketborough of the Gandhi family since the days of Mr Gandhi's grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It is also the constituency Ms Irani has her eye on. In the 2014 elections, she contested against Mr Gandhi and though she lost, she managed to reduce Rahul Gandhi's winning margin.
The results of last year's assembly elections, though, showed cracks in the citadel. Of the four assembly seats under the Amethi parliamentary constituency, the party lost all. The BJP bagged three, the Samajwadi Party retained one.
Mr Gandhi and his party have scaled up their attack on the Prime Minister over the Rafale issue following former French President Francois Hollande's comment that Dassault was given no choice about an offset partner in India and Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence was named for the position by the Centre. Dassault and the government have both denied this.
The matter is pending in the Supreme Court, where the government admitted last week that there is no sovereign guarantee from France that Dassault will meet its obligation of delivering the 36 Rafale fighter jets. There is a letter of comfort from the French government, which gives an assurance that the job will be done, but in legal terms it does not carry as much weight as a sovereign guarantee.
Mr Gandhi has attacked the government over the issue, questioning whether the deal was indeed a government-to-government understanding or just another indication that the Prime Minister has sold out.
On Saturday, at an election rally in Chhattisgarh, Mr Gandhi said he challenged PM Modi to participate in a debate over the details of the Rafale fighter jets. The Prime Minister, he said, was not in a position to answer his questions over the alleged scams in the deal.