Rahul Gandhi has been fielded from Rae Bareli while Kishori Lal Sharma will be contesting from Amethi.
The Congress, which is contesting 17 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh as part of the seat-sharing deal with the Samajwadi Party (SP), had announced candidates for all the seats barring Amethi and Rae Bareli.
Gandhi bastion
Rae Bareli is also a bastion of the Congress. From 1967 to 1977, the seat was held by former prime minister Indira Gandhi, and from 2004 until her appointment to the Rajya Sabha in 2024, by Sonia Gandhi.
Rahul will file his nomination from the constituency on Friday. He will be pitted against BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh. He had been fielded by the party from the seat in 2019 too.
Singh had lost to Sonia by a margin of 1.67 lakh votes.
On being selected again to fight from Rae Bareli, Singh said: “I assure the country that farewell of ‘nakli’ Gandhis from Rae Bareli is certain. It is certain that BJP’s ‘lotus’ will bloom, and Congress will lose. I have even fought against 4-time MP Sonia Gandhi, so Priyanka Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi are not important to me. Whichever Gandhi comes to Rae Bareli, they will lose.”
Cutting close to deadline
The announcement comes on the last day for filing of nominations for Phase 5 of the Lok Sabha elections. Both the constituencies are going to the polls on May 20.
Rahul’s defeat in Amethi, once considered a Congress ‘pocket borough’, at the hands of Irani in the 2019 polls was seen as a significant blow to the party’s national prestige. Irani won the seat by a margin of around 55,000 votes.
Rahul represented Amethi in the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2019. His father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, too, was an elected member of Amethi in the Lower House from 1981 till his death in 1991. Sonia Gandhi contested elections from here in 1999 before passing the baton on to Rahul in 2004.
Rahul currently represents Wayanad in the Lok Sabha while Irani is bidding for a fresh term from Amethi.
(With inputs from agencies)
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