Nehru-Gandhi family kept Amethi underdeveloped for poor to plead with them: Smriti Irani

AMETHI (UP): Attacking the Nehru-Gandhi family, Union Minister and local MP Smriti Irani on Wednesday alleged that they have kept Amethi deprived of development for over 50 years so that the people here remain poor and helpless and continue pleading with them with folded hands. Addressing a programme here in Pandeyganj village, she said, "Amethi has also seen the time when the people here used to go to Delhi to meet the MP. At that time, either the MPs were abroad or their security personnel did not allow them to enter.

"The 'naamdars' (Gandhi family) deprived Amethi of development for 50 years so that the people here remained poor and helpless and kept pleading before them with folded hands," she said.

"As a result of their thinking, 1.08 lakh families of Amethi did not have houses. Apart from this, four lakh families did not have taps for drinking water and three lakh families did not have toilets.


"The MPs who were elected from here had nothing to do with the public. MPs used to come to Amethi once in five years," she said.

Irani had won 2019 Lok Sabha polls defeating Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from this constituency once considered a Congress pocket borough.

She asked where the brother-sister duo (Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra), who used to come here for votes, were during the Covid period.

"Those who have not seen poverty could not realise their pain. Today, Prime minister Narendra Modi realises the pain of the poor and ensures development," she added.