Will Priyanka Gandhi Make Her Election Debut In Raebareli?

As she celebrates this year the Silver Jubilee (1999-2024) of her parliamentary career in the Lok Sabha, the House of the People, Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has opted out of the hurly-burly of fighting elections.

Instead, Sonia Gandhi has decided to go to the Rajya Sabha, the House of the Elders. She filed her Nomination papers in the Rajasthan Assembly in Jaipur on February 14, in the presence of Rajasthan PCC President Govind Singh Dotasara, former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

In a letter to her constituents the Congress leader has asked for continuing support for herself and her family. Sonia Gandhi's move is seen as making way for daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Raebareli. The stage is set for Priyanka’s parliamentary debut. The Congress is pinning hopes on a revival in the major Hindi-Heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, as the party eyes return to power at Centre in 2024.

The Congress hopes that with Rahul Gandhi in Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi in Raebareli, it would be able to fire the party cadres and capture the imagination of the people at large in Uttar Pradesh.

For her part, Sonia Gandhi, 77, who has not been keeping good health, is not in a position to contest Lok Sabha elections that entails active travel and vigorous campaigning.

Interestingly, Sonia Gandhi is the only other member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to go to the Rajya Sabha, after Indira Gandhi. Otherwise, the Nehru-Gandhi family members contest only for the Lok Sabha. Indira had a brief stint in the Rajya Sabha from 1964-1967, before she moved to the Lok Sabha.

After Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s death on May 27, 1964, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who succeeded, was keen on Indira joining his Government. After much persuasion, Indira was elected to the Rajya Sabha and she joined the Shastri Government as the Union Information & Broadcasting Minister.

Following the tragic demise of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri after the Tashkent Agreement in Tashkent on January 11, 1966, Indira succeeded as the Prime Minister.

In the General Election in 1967, Indira chose for the first time to stand for the election in Raebareli, where her late husband Feroze Gandhi was elected as the MP.

Feroze Gandhi, who was a member of the Provisional Parliament from 1950-1952, contested and won the First General Election in 1952 from Raebareli. He won the Second General Election in 1957, as well, but he passed away in 1960. Seven years later, Indira, his widow, fought her first Lok Sabha elections from Raebareli.

In 1967 and 1971, Indira won from Raebareli. However, in 1977, she was defeated in Raebareli by Raj Narain. In the General Election in 1980, Indira contested from two seats, Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh and Medak in the erstwhile Undivided Andhra Pradesh and now in Telangana. Elected from both seats, she retained Medak, resigning from Raebareli.

Following in her mother-in-law Indira's footsteps, Sonia Gandhi represented Raebareli for two decades, from 2004 to 2024, before stepping back to make way for Priyanka. In 2004, when Rahul Gandhi entered politics, the mother moved to Raebareli, to make way for him in Amethi.

The family matriarch who refrained from joining politics after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, when she declined the Congress Working Committee (CWC) Resolution electing her as the Congress President, finally was forced to reconsider her position and enter politics.

The one objective in front of her was to save the Congress, and protect her family as she made clear from time to time.

As the party reached the brink of disintegration under Congress President Sitaram Kesari in 1996-1998, Sonia Gandhi stepped in to presumably save the party from visible disintegration. On December 29, 1997 she announced her decision to campaign for the Congress in the General Election in March, 1998.

Though the Congress party failed to come back to power immediately in 1998 and 1999, she did succeed in pulling the Congress back from the precipice, putting it on track to storm back to power in 2004, trouncing the seemingly invincible Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government at the hustings.

Sonia Gandhi decided to steer the party in its most difficult hour. On March 6, 1998, she was elected Congress President and on March 15, 1998, she was elected Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Chairperson.

Since she was not elected to Parliament, she named Sharad Pawar as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Dr Manmohan Singh as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

That was the time when, egged on by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar and P. A. Sangma, chose to raise the banner of revolt against Sonia’s ‘foreign origins’ in May, 1999. The Congress firmly rallied behind Sonia, throwing out the three leaders.

In the General Election in 1999, Sonia Gandhi chose to contest from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. This was the seat represented by her husband right from the by-election caused by the tragic death of his younger brother and sitting MP Sanjay Gandhi on June 23, 1980, till his own tragic assassination on May 21, 1991. It was considered a safe seat for the Congress party at the time.

In 1999, after her election to the Lok Sabha from Amethi, Sonia Gandhi decided to lead the Congress and the Opposition from the front, by assuming the mantle of Leader of the Opposition.

For her personally 1999 proved to be the most difficult period. In a political masterstroke, she reached out to late AIADMK Supremo J. Jayalalithaa at a tea-party hosted by Dr. Subramanian Swamy and brought down the Vajpayee Government.

Sonia Gandhi made the now famous statement that the 272 MPs backed the effort at Government-formation. Even as the Opposition ridiculed her, her supporters insisted that all she meant was that the 272 MPs, who voted against the Vajpayee Government, would logically support the efforts to form the alternative government at the Centre. But, the Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who became Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister for the first time with the support of the BJP in 1990, put the spanner in the works by refusing to support a coalition Government led by the Congress party that had been tardy in consultations with the regional parties.

Sensing an opportunity in the General Elections in 2004, Sonia Gandhi reached out to the DMK in Tamil Nadu, which was under a cloud, following the revelations of the Interim Report of the Jain Commission of Inquiry, weaning them away from the BJP. Similarly, she walked across to the house of Lok Jan Shakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan, in a bid to build a rainbow Coalition against the BJP.

After the General Election in 2004, Sonia did manage to cobble up the post-poll United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The Congress naturally elected her as the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Leader. But the real surprise was Sharad Pawar, who had quit the Congress in protest against Sonia ‘foreign origins’, proposed her name as the UPA Parliamentary Party Leader, after which the then President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam extended the invite to Sonia Gandhi to form the Government.

It was only after getting the Presidential Invite to form the Government that Sonia Gandhi went into a huddle with her party leaders that lasted several hours, even as the media was kept waiting outside for the announcement. In what was a surprise move at the time, she emerged finally to announce that she would not be the Prime Minister, and went on to nominate Dr Manmohan Singh for the post.