Of all the seats that the BJP-led NDA won in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Amethi garnered the maximum attention with Smriti Irani winning the constituency.
Fondly called Didi in Amethi, the journey of the actor-turned-politician since 2003 — when she joined the party — till today has been quite remarkable.
In the previous NDA government, too, Irani held various portfolios starting with Human Resource Development.
Irani’s two-year stint as HRD Minister was full of controversies. Objections were raised on her appointment as a minister because of ambiguity over her educational qualifications. She was also accused of favouritism in appointments.
She was dropped from the HRD Ministry during a Cabinet reshuffle in 2016 and was assigned the Ministry of Textiles. A year later, she was given the additional charge of Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B), post the resignation of M Venkaiah Naidu. The responsbility was taken away from her in 2018.
Even during her tenure as I&B Minister, she drew flak for her efforts to clamp down on ‘fake news’.
An I&B Ministry directive to regulate fake news through penalties on journalists was withdrawn within hours at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office.