Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Amethi has voted Rahul Gandhi since his first election in 2004.
Rahul Gandhi, in a letter addressed to "Mera Amethi parivar (my Amethi family)," urges people of his constituency in Uttar Pradesh to vote him back as their MP and promises to push schemes for the region as soon as "the Congress forms government at the centre". Amethi votes in the fifth round of the national election on May 6.
"It is my promise to the people of Amethi that the moment the Congress comes to power at the centre, the schemes blocked by the BJP will be started soonest. On 6 May, vote in large numbers to bring back this member of the family," writes the Congress president, who has not been seen in Amethi this election season as much as his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who has always campaigned on his behalf in the largely rural constituency.
Accusing the BJP of setting up a "factory of lies" and distributing "rivers of cash" to draw voters, he writes to voters that Amethi's strength is its "honesty, integrity and simplicity".
Amethi has voted Rahul Gandhi since his first election in 2004, when he joined politics, but the much reduced votes and vote share in the last election in 2014, when the BJP fielded Smriti Irani against him, has given the Congress chief reason to worry. The BJP has accused him of choosing another constituency, Kerala's Wayanad, as he is afraid of losing Amethi.
Smriti Irani, encouraged by the one lakh margin of defeat to Rahul Gandhi, never stopped visiting Amethi and is running an aggressive campaign there.
"Amethi is my family," Rahul Gandhi says in his letter. "My Amethi family gives me courage that I stand with the truth, that I can hear the pain of the poor and weak and raise my voice for them and to ensure equal justice for all."
He writes about "two ideologies" in the country - the Congress's that works for farmers, youth, the weak, women and small traders and that of the ruling BJP which, he says, wants to work for 15-20 industrialists. The people rule in the Congress "system" and "Anil Ambani is the boss" in the BJP's system, he writes.
"With your love, I have tried to unite the country from north to south; east to west...My karmbhumi Amethi's ideology is getting support from across the country," the Congress president says in his letter.
Smriti Irani said the letter "signifies that he has not given importance to Amethi".