In the history of parliamentary elections, Congress is likely to go to the polls without any member of the Gandhi family contesting from Uttar Pradesh which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha.
In 2019, Congress president Sonia Gandhi won the only seat for the party in UP after she retained the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who represented Amethi in the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2019, faced defeat in the 2019 elections against Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Smriti Irani.
Sources suggest that Rahul Gandhi has declined to contest from Amethi again, while his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has refused to enter the electoral fray in Rae Bareli. Sonia Gandhi has already declared that she is physically unfit to contest Lok Sabha election and hence got herself elected to Rajya Sabha. Thus, the decision of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would mark a significant departure of the Gandhi family from its traditional bastions in Uttar Pradesh.
Although there has been no official confirmation from the Congress regarding this development, discussions have intensified following Rahul Gandhi’s nomination from Wayanad in Kerala, without a mention of Amethi in the initial list of candidates.
Despite ongoing speculation, some Congress leaders in Uttar Pradesh maintain that Rahul Gandhi will contest from both Wayanad and Amethi.
The sources said that seeing the party’s graph touching the bottom in UP, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could not muster the courage to start her political innings from Rae Bareli, her mother’s Lok Sabha constituency.
Sources said Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would not contest from any seat to keep herself free to campaign for the party across the country.
Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh Congress had passed a resolution urging members of the Gandhi family to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Amethi and Rae Bareli. UP Congress president Ajay Rai emphasised that the Congress election committee had unanimously supported the resolution, emphasising the significance of the Gandhi family’s presence in these constituencies for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
