After much procrastination and speculations for weeks, the Congress party’s royal family has finally given up the Amethi seat. On May 3, the last day of filing nominations, Congress announced Rahul Gandhi’s name as the candidate for the Rae Bareli seat.
Sonia Gandhi had vacated the Rae Bareli seat recently, choosing to go to parliament via the Rajya Sabha route.
BJP has already announced UP minister Dinesh Pratap Singh as a candidate for the Rae Bareli seat.
Congress releases another list of candidates for the upcoming #LokSabhaElections2024
— ANI (@ANI) May 3, 2024
Rahul Gandhi to contest from Raebareli and Kishori Lal Sharma from Amethi. pic.twitter.com/2w4QQcn9ok
Congress has announced the name of Kishori Lal Sharma from Amethi. As per the latest reports, Sharma was seen refusing to comment anything about the announcement of his name. He was seen avoiding journalists and saying that he would comment only after talks with the party leadership about it.
The seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli are considered the bastions of the Gandhi family. Smriti Irani took the challenge to defeat Rahul Gandhi in the Amethi seat. Though she didn’t succeed in 2014, she registered a phenomenal victory in 2019. The speculation of loss had made Rahul Gandhi contest from an alternative seat, Kerala’s Wayanad, where he managed to win.
Speculations were rife that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would contest from Rae Bareli, to send a message to voters in UP that the Gandhi family is still very much politically relevant. However, putting all speculations to rest, Priyanka, whose leadership has failed to result in any gains for the Congress, seems to have given up hopes of winning.
Congress supporters and party leaders have expressed openly that the Gandhi family should ‘take up the fight’ instead of running away, to encourage the party workers.
