Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is likely to make her poll debut from the Raebareli constituency in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha 2024 Elections which has been represented by her mother former Congress President Sonia Gandhi who has now made inroads to Rajya Sabha.

Posters of Priyanka Gandhi have already come up in Rae Bareli while neigbouring Amethi too has been splashed with posters of Rahul Gandhi who lost the last Lok Sabha polls to BJP’s Smriti Irani.

The Rae Bareli seat was won by Sonia five times in the past, including 2019, when she was the sole Congress leader to win a UP Lok Sabha seat.

Posters seeking Priyanka’s candidature from Raebareli, put up by Congress workers, read, “Take Congress’ development work forward, Raebareli is calling... Priyanka, please come.” Congress sources said Rahul is also likely to contest from both Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and Wayanad in Kerala which he is representing currently.

The top leadership of the Congress will meet in the national Capital on Thursday to finalise the party candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

“The first meeting of the Congress’ Central Election Committee (CEC) that considers and decides on candidates for Lok Sabha polls is being held on March 7,” AICC general secretary, communications, Jairam Ramesh said.

Top leaders, including president Mallikarjun Kharge and former chiefs Sonia and Rahul will be present at the meeting, besides other senior leaders who are part of the panel. The Congress has not declared any candidate so far.

Last week, the BJP came out with its first list of 195 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.

 Besides the seat-sharing formula of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of which the Congress is part for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls was also finalised in the meeting of its leaders in Mumbai on Wednesday. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats.

The MVA constituents — Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) headed by Uddhav Thackeray and the NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar led by Sharad Pawar - have been holding hectic parleys for several days to reach a consensus on seat-sharing. Prakash Ambedkar of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) will also be part of the seat-sharing talks.

Seat sharing as part of INDIA Bloc strategy has already been announced for major States Uttar Pradesh and Delhi and is to be announced by this weekend for Maharshtra and Jharkhand.

Seeking to woo the country’s youth ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress will for the first time ever offer them the “right to employment” as part of its poll promise for the Lok Sabha elections.

The party’s manifesto committee, which is headed by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and has senior leaders like Priyanka, Shashi Tharoor and Anand Sharma, among others, has sealed the manifesto after a marathon meeting on Tuesday and will be announced after the poll dates next week.