The nail-biting suspense is finally over. Rahul Gandhi will contest from the family seat of Rae Bareli seat while the old family aide Kishori Lal Sharma is the Congress candidate from Amethi.
The official confirmation came barely seven hours before the nomination closes in both these constituencies which are going to the polls in the 5th phase on May 20. These two seats are in Congress share of 17 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Huge preparations are afoot to welcome the Gandhi family who would be present at the nomination in both these constituencies. Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka as well as Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge are to be present at Rae Bareli when Rahul files his nomination at 12.15 am on Friday. They have cancelled their scheduled meetings and rallies to be present on the occasion.
It appears that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is not seeing herself in electoral politics at this stage. Her reluctance to enter the electoral fray may have led to the party’s decision to make Rahul contest from his mother’s constituency of Rae Bareli, a seat which had sent a Nehru-Gandhi to Parliament 12 times.
After waiting for the Congress to reveal its cards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finally blinked first and announced its Rae Bareli candidate on the last day. Once again Dinesh Pratap Singh is in the fray. In 2019 he was defeated by the sitting MP Sonia Gandhi by a margin of 1.67 lakh votes.
A former Congress MLC Singh had joined the BJP in 2018 and did manage to substantially diminish the Congress presence as he halved Sonia Gandhi’s victory margin to 1.67 in 2019 from 3.5 lakhs of 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat includes five Assembly segments of Bachhrawan, Harchandpur, Rae Bareli, Sareni and Unchahar. Except for Rae Bareli which is represented by the BJP, all other assembly constituencies were won by the Samajwadi party in 2022.
Rae Bareli has been represented by the Gandhi-Nehru family for a record 12 times. Firoze Gandhi won from here in 1952 and 1957, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1967 and 1980, Arun Nehru in 1984, Sheila Kaul in 1989 and 1991 and Sonia Gandhi has been representing Rae Bareli for the last five consecutive Lok Sabha elections including a by-poll in 2006.
In Amethi K. L. Sharma will be in the fray against BJP candidate and Union Minister Smriti Irani. Sharma has been associated with the party for over four decades. Belonging to Ludhiana, Sharma came to Amethi in 1983 with Rajiv Gandhi.
He became a trusted aide of the family after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination on 21 May 1991. He has been nurturing both the constituencies over the years.
The sitting Amethi MP 48-year-old Smriti Irani filed her nomination on April 29. She is seeking a second term and accusing Rahul of abandoning his traditional seat.
The decision not to field a Gandhi from Amethi is expected to be used by Smriti Irani who in an interview to a new channel had said that the Congress leadership is “aware that this is a losing seat for them, because if they were so confident of their victory, they would have announced their candidate by now”.
Amethi includes the assembly segments of Tiloi, Salon, Jagdishpur, Gauriganj and Amethi. In 2022 Tiloi, Salon and Jagdishpur elected BJP MLAs. In Gauriganj and Amethi the Samajwadi party candidates Rakesh Pratap Singh and Maharaji Prajapati won respectively. However, they voted for the BJP candidate during the recent Rajya Sabha elections virtually coming out in support of the saffron party.
Rae Bareli and Amethi are being being decked up with marigold flowers and Congress supporters have lining up on both sides of the road to have a glimpse of the Gandhi family who will be visiting their traditional constituencies after a long time.
Cover File Photograph