Rahul Gandhi for Rae Bareli; Gandhi family loyalist fielded from Amethi
The Hindu
Congress fields Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli and K.L. Sharma from Amethi, sparking mixed reactions and political strategies.
Hours before the deadline for filing nominations, the Congress announced on Friday morning that it would field its former president Rahul Gandhi from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli constituency, and Gandhi family loyalist K.L. Sharma from Amethi, ending the long suspense over who would contest from the family’s stronghold.
Though this brings Mr. Gandhi back into the battle for the Hindi heartland, it evoked a wide range of responses, from Congress leaders terming it a masterstroke, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leaders accusing him of “running away”.
Mr. Gandhi — accompanied by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, his mother Sonia Gandhi, sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, brother-in-law Robert Vadra, and party general secretary K.C. Venugopal — filed his nomination for the seat, describing it as an “emotional” moment. His mother Ms. Gandhi had held the seat till February, when she resigned after winning a Rajya Sabha election from Rajasthan.
By moving to Rae Bareli, Mr. Gandhi has avoided a re-match with Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani in Amethi. After winning the seat thrice in a row since his electoral debut from Amethi in 2004, he lost to Ms. Irani in the 2019 general election. Rae Bareli, which the Congress has lost only thrice in the past, is considered a safer bet.
Countering the criticism this move has generated, Mr. Gandhi claimed that the Amethi and Rae Bareli seats are not “different” and voters in both the constituencies are his “family”.
“I am happy that Kishori Lal ji, who has been serving the area for 40 years, will represent the party from Amethi. In the ongoing fight for justice against injustice, I seek the love and blessings of my loved ones. I am confident that all of you stand with me in this fight to save the Constitution and democracy,” he wrote on X, after filing the nomination.
Rae Bareli was the only seat that the Congress had won in Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 election, with Sonia Gandhi decimating the BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh by roughly 1,67,000 votes. Ms. Gandhi polled 5,34,918 votes (55.80 percent) against the BJP nominee who polled 3,67,740 (38.36 percent) votes. Mr. Singh, who had been with the Congress for more than seven-years before switching to the BJP, is once again in the fray and will face Mr. Gandhi.
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