New Delhi: Smriti Irani, whose meteoric rise in the BJP saw her become the HRD and Information & Broadcasting Minister before being divested of these portfolios, Thursday emerged as a giant-killer -- this time scripting a historic win by dethroning Rahul Gandhi in the Congress's home turf. The 43-year-old popular television actor-turned politician continued to cultivate Amethi in the past five years despite her loss in 2014 to Gandhi and this helped her reap electoral dividends.

Throughout her campaigning, Irani asserted that people of Amethi want change and development and will vote for Modi. Irani courted controversy quite often, be it her educational qualification or her stint in the Union Cabinet. In her nomination papers, she mentioned she was not a graduate. She said she passed secondary school examination in 1991 and senior secondary school examination in 1993. In a previous affidavit, she had said she graduated from Delhi University in 1994, triggering a row over the veracity of her claim, with opposition parties alleging she was not a graduate.