Sultanpur Lok Sabha seat: BJP’s Maneka Gandhi trailing with 22,000 votes

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Maneka Gandhi is trailing from Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur by more than 22,000 votes, the latest data from Election Commission showed. As per the ECI data, the sitting MP is behind Samajwadi Party’s Rambhual Nishad. BSP’s Udraj Verma is placed third with 99,871 votes.Lok Sabha Election Results LIVE updatesThe Sultanpur Lok Sabha seat comprises five Assembly segments including Isauli, Sultanpur, Sadar, Lambhua and Kadipur. The constituency is a General seat.ALSO READ: Maneka Gandhi on why Varun was dropped from Pilibhit: ‘Can’t think of other reason’
Since Independence, Sultanpur has seen MPs from several parties and no single party has had an outright dominance on the seat. Congress has won eight times in Sultanpur, while BSP has won twice and BJP has secured victory four times.
Maneka Gandhi is a prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leader and an animal rights activist. Born on August 26, 1956, in Delhi, she married Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi in 1974.
During the Emergency between 1975 and 77, Sanjay Gandhi rose to prominence and Maneka Gandhi was seen with him at all public appearances. After the defeat of Congress in 1977, she founded the Surya magazine to promote the grand old party.
In 1980, the couple became parents to a son named Varun. On June 23 that year, Sanjay Gandhi was killed in a plane crash. Following differences with her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, Maneka Gandhi left the PM’s residence.
In 1983, Maneka Gandhi founded the Rashtriya Sanjay Manch along with her late husband’s friend Akbar Ahmad. In 1984, she unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election from Amethi against her brother-in-law Rajiv Gandhi.
In 1988, Maneka Gandhi joined the Janata Dal and became its general secretary. She won her first parliamentary election from Pilibhit and became a minister in the governments headed by VP Singh and later Chandra Shekhar. She lost the elections from Pilibhit in 1991 but bounced back and got elected in 1996, 1998 and 1999. Maneka Gandhi joined the BJP in 2004 and got elected once again from the seat.
In 2009, she shifted to Aonla while her son Varun Gandhi contested from Pilibhit and won. In 2014, she returned to Pilibhit and won the seat. However, the BJP fielded her from Sultanpur in 2019 which she won once again.
Maneka Gandhi served as minister in the NDA governments headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi (2014-2019).