The people of Amethi and Rae Bareli want only the members of the Gandhi family to contest from these two parliamentary seats, the Congress party’s Uttar Pradesh president Ajay Rai said on February 14. He added that the State Congress is also of the opinion that the Gandhi family must contest from these seats which they have traditionally represented.
“Recently, I visited both Amethi and Rae Bareli. The mood of the public is very much clear to elect Gandhi family members in Parliament. These constituencies share an emotional bond with the Gandhi family. In Amethi, people are eager to correct the mistake of 2019. We [the U.P. Congress unit] also want any members of the family to contest in the two seats,” Mr. Rai told The Hindu.
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Speculation over the candidates for these two seats has grown after former party chief Sonia Gandhi, the current Lok Sabha MP from Rae Bareli, filed her nomination for the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, for the lone seat that the Congress is getting in Rajasthan. Ms. Gandhi won the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli, defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh by over 1,65,000 votes. Though Amethi was represented by her son Rahul Gandhi between 2004 and 2019, he lost the seat to the BJP’s Smriti Irani in 2019, by roughly 55,000 votes.
‘Admitting defeat’
The BJP targeted Ms. Gandhi and the Congress over her Rajya Sabha nomination from Rajasthan, claiming it as proof that the Opposition party was running scared in U.P.
“After the Congress’ crushing defeat in Amethi, Rae Bareli was next. Sonia Gandhi’s decision to opt for Rajya Sabha is an admission of a looming defeat. The Gandhis have now deserted every supposed stronghold of theirs. The Congress will draw a blank in U.P., despite 11 seats offered by the SP,” the BJP’s IT chief Amit Malviya said.
