Rahul Gandhi (L); Kishori Lal Sharma.
Credit: PTI Photo; X/@RavinderKapur2
New Delhi: With speculation swinging like a pendulum for days, Congress on Friday announced the candidature of Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat vacated by his mother Sonia Gandhi, while his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra refused to come under pressure to fight the polls.
The announcement came barely hours before filing the nominations for the seats considered Gandhi family bastions, thus capping the endless wait for party leaders and workers, who were in turn left crestfallen as they were expecting Priyanka’s entry into electoral politics.
Congress chose K L Sharma to fight from Amethi, which Rahul lost to BJP’s Smriti Irani by around 55,000 votes in 2019. Instead, Rahul chose to fight from Raebareli, which Sonia has been representing since 2004. Sharma has been coordinating the Gandhis’ parliamentary work in both these seats for years.
The names were finalised after hectic parleys overnight involving Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal, and the Gandhis. However, the announcement came only at 7:45 am on Friday. There were efforts to convince Priyanka to take the electoral plunge.
The first clear indication of Priyanka opting out came late Thursday evening when her office shared her programme for Friday, in which it was said that she will be holding a roadshow in UP’s Fatehpur Sikri.
Though the Congress' final choice of candidate was not known, party workers in both Amethi and Raebareli had been preparing to welcome the Gandhi siblings to both Amethi and Raebareli while party managers in Uttar Pradesh were preparing ground for the exercise of filing nominations for the past few days amid rising demand for announcing their names. Both seats head to the ballot boxes on May 20 in the fifth phase of elections.
Rahul will be taking on BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh, who fought against Sonia in 2019 and managed to halve her majority margin.
The last couple of days have witnessed intense speculation about the nominees for both the seats – from Rahul and Priyanka not fighting from either constituency, to only one of them fighting the polls and then to them swapping the seats. However, the Congress remained tightlipped and made the announcement only at the last minute.
There has been an unusual delay in announcing the candidates for both seats, with some Congress sources saying that an announcement would come only after LS polls are over in Kerala elections (which happened on April 26), where Rahul was fighting from Wayanad, a seat which he represents since 2019.
For the cadre, it will be bittersweet as Rahul attempts to continue the Gandhi family's winning streak in Raebareli while Priyanka has refused to venture into the battle. While Priyanka, in a rally in Chhattisgarh, had said that they were not the ones to get scared and leave, Rahul had earlier said that he will contest any seat as decided by the party.
There was intense speculation that Rahul may not contest from a second seat, but the party's decision of not fielding him from Amethi could have an adverse impact as the opponent BJP might use it as a plank to claim that fearing defeat, a scared Gandhi family was abandoning north India. Irani has already claimed that Rahul has run away to Wayanad.
Both seats have been with Congress for years — Amethi was represented by Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi since 1980 except for six years, including the last five when Irani was the MP.
Raebareli was represented by Feroz Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. Sonia has been winning Raebareli since 2004 and even managed to retain her seat in 2019 amidst a Modi wave, with the seat being the lone one the Congress won from Uttar Pradesh last time.