The might of the Gandhi family appears to have worked at least in its parliamentary constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli where Congress bagged one-third of its 22 seats after fielding 393 candidates for the just concluded Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
The party romped home victorious in seven assembly segments in its stronghold out of a total of ten seats.
The Congress, which had not fared well in the last assembly elections, performed exceptionally well in Amethi with the party bagging three seats and taking second place in the remaining two.
The party's overall tally in the state was three less than the previous 25 held in the outgoing assembly.
In Rae Bareli, where party's star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi had stayed put for over eight days in two phases taking up hectic campaigning in remote villages, the party earned four seats losing just one.
The party had drawn a blank in the last assembly election in Rae Bareli.
While two of its candidates retained their seats in Amethi parliamentary constituency -- Amita Singh (Amethi) and Ram Sewak Dhobi (Jagdishpur for the record ninth time), it gained the Salon seat with Shiv Balak Pasi winning by a comfortable margin of over 11,000 votes.
It lost the Tiloi seat by a slender margin of 457 to Samajwadi Party and the Gauriganj seat by 4,700 to Bahujan Samaj Party nominee.
In Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, party nominees wrested Bachrawan, Sataon, Sareni and Dalmau losing the only Sadar seat to Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a former Congressman.
Rajaram Tyagi won the Bachrawan seat and Shiv Ganesh Lodhi the Sataon seat for the Congress. The Sareni seat was won by Ashok Singh and Dalmau seat was taken by Ajay Pal Singh.
Besides Priyanka, Rahul had given three days to these constituencies and Sonia Gandhi addressed two meetings in the area during campaigning.
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