The Uttar Pradesh unit of the Congress on Sunday unanimously passed a resolution for the candidature from the Gandhi family in Amethi and Raebareli seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) refrained from officially naming the candidates from the family but sources confirmed the push is for Rahul Gandhi to contest from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra from Raebareli.
“The Pradesh Election Committee met today and discussed candidates in each of the 17 Lok Sabha seats allocated to us under INDIA alliance. Names of three to five probable candidates are sent for other seats to the CEC, while for Amethi and Raebareli seats, the PEC unanimously passed a resolution requesting the Congress president to make members of the Gandhi family candidates. No other names were discussed in the meeting for both seats,” Anil Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Congress general secretary, told The Hindu.
The grand-old-party and the Samajwadi Party (SP) have reached a seat-sharing agreement for the parliamentary polls that gives 17 seats to the Congress and 63 seats to the SP. The PEC led by the State Congress chief Ajay Rai, consists of 39 members, including all senior State Congress leaders. The State unit is continuously pushing for the candidature of both Mr. Gandhi and Ms. Vadra from the old bastions represented by the family till 2019. Raebareli was won by the family (Sonia Gandhi) even in 2019.
Recently, posters reading, “Raebareli pukarti, Priyanka Gandhi ji aaye [Raebareli calls, Priyanka Gandhi to come]” surfaced in intersections of Raebareli asking the former Uttar Pradesh Congress in-charge to carry forward the development works of the grand-old-party in the constituency represented previously by her mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The demand for Ms. Vadra to contest from the seat increased after Ms. Gandhi announced last month that she won’t contest the polls citing “health and age-related issues”. On February 19, Ms. Gandhi was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. Ms. Gandhi represented the Raebareli seat four times in the Lok Sabha and won by a margin of over 1,67,000 votes in 2019, defeating Dinesh Pratap Singh of the BJP.
Meets Maurya
In a related development to Lok Sabha polls and Congress’s outreach to Opposition players, Uttar Pradesh Congress General Secretary and State in-charge Avinash Pandey met former SP leader and founder of Rashtriya Shoshit Samaaj Party (RSSP) Swami Prasad Maurya. Mr. Maurya described the outreach as positive in regard to expanding the INDIA alliance in Uttar Pradesh.
