Sonal Patel.
Credit: X/@sonaldatta
62-year-old All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Sonal Patel is contesting from Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat against Union Home Minister Amit Shah. A high-profile seat which party's veteran L K Advani represented, Gandhinagar is a BJP fortress. In 2019, her rival Shah won by a margin of over 5 lakh votes.
An architect by profession, Patel comes from a family of Congress leaders. Her father, Raman Patel, was a municipal councillor from Naranpura in Ahmedabad. She had contested from Naranpur Assembly seat in 2022 but lost to BJP candidate Jitendra Patel. She has studied at CEPT and is a town planner by profession.
Patel has been appealing for people to donate to support her poll campaign. In 2019, Congress had fielded senior leader C J Chavda who lost to Shah by a margin of 5.57 lakh votes. Chavda has joined the BJP recently.