Gandhi siblings’ indecision on contesting polls from UP keeps Congress, SP on edge

As siblings Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi keep everyone guessing on the possibility of their candidature from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies, respectively, not just their Congress colleagues but also leaders of the Samajwadi Party have been growing uneasy.

The two constituencies, long seen as the electoral turf of the Nehru–Gandhi family, will vote in the fifth phase (May 20) of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, and the last date for candidates to file nominations from these seats is May 3, barely a week from now. Sections within the Congress had indicated earlier that the Gandhi siblings would take a call on whether either or both of them would contest the polls from UP once polling concludes in Kerala’s Wayanad, the constituency Rahul currently represents in Lok Sabha and is seeking re-election from.

With Wayanad having gone to polls with the other 19 constituencies of Kerala, on April 26, Congress insiders told The Federal that party leaders as well as Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav want the brother–sister duo to not delay announcing the candidates from Amethi and Rae Bareli any further. As an ally of the SP, the Congress is contesting 17 of UP’s 80 Lok Sabha seats in the current election and barring Amethi and Rae Bareli it has declared its candidates for all other constituencies.

The Congress’ UP unit has been urging Rahul to return to the electoral fray from Amethi, the seat he made his electoral debut from in 2004 and retained till his humiliating loss against BJP’s Smriti Irani in 2019, while it wants Priyanka to contest from Rae Bareli, the seat held by her mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi since 2004. Sonia opted out of electoral politics earlier this year and has since been elected to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan.

Sole triumph in UP

Sonia’s Rae Bareli win was the only victory that the Congress had registered from UP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the party’s electoral fortunes in the state have only plummeted in the state ever since as evident from the results of the 2022 assembly polls, in which the party could win a mere two of the 403 constituencies.

The Congress and the SP share the view that Rahul and Priyanka “must not abandon” UP by opting out of the electoral contest in Amethi and Rae Bareli. “With Sonia deciding to not contest the election this time, it is absolutely necessary that Rahul and Priyanka must take up the mantle from their mother. Rahul’s decision to move to Wayanad in 2019 and his defeat in Amethi had demoralised the entire party in UP and we have not recovered from that till now. Every single leader and worker of the party in the state wants Rahul and Priyanka to contest from Amethi and Rae Bareli, respectively. We even passed a resolution to this effect and a delegation of leaders from UP personally met them with this demand, but they are yet to clarify their position. The election in Wayanad is now over and I am positive that very soon the party will announce their candidature,” UP Congress chief Ajay Rai said.

Don’t back off: Akhilesh

A senior SP leader told The Federal that Akhilesh too has repeatedly urged Rahul and Priyanka to fight the poll from UP. “I don’t know whether Rahul and Priyanka agreed because that was a conversation between them and Akhilesh, but our party also wants them to fight from Amethi and Rae Bareli. If they don’t fight, it will send a very wrong message and allow the BJP to claim that the Congress knows the BJP is sweeping UP, which is why the Gandhis have fled from their traditional seats. In 2019, Rahul’s decision to fight from two seats is what cost him Amethi because the BJP was able to convey the message to voters that Rahul was scared of losing. Now if both brother and sister opt out, the BJP will be even more aggressive and this will have an adverse impact for both Congress and SP because we are in alliance,” the SP leader said.

Given the long delay in announcing the candidates, some in the Congress have begun to fear that the build-up may end in an anti-climax reminiscent of the 2019 polls when the party leadership allowed an impression to gain ground that Priyanka, who had taken the political plunge earlier that year, would enter the electoral fray and could even fight against Narendra Modi in Varanasi. Both Rahul and Priyanka fanned the speculation until it reached a feverish pitch, but the party eventually fielded Rai. Incidentally, the Congress has once again nominated Rai to contest against Modi despite him finishing third in the Varanasi contest for the past two Lok Sabha polls.

Pack up time for Congress?

“The election in Amethi and Rae Bareli is less than a month away and no one knows yet whether Rahul and Priyanka will fight or not. Smriti Irani has already been campaigning in Amethi for months and there is visible public anger against her, but if Rahul does not contest from here, Irani will win. In Rae Bareli, though the BJP is also waiting for the Congress to declare its candidate, its leaders have been conducting door-to-door poll campaign since early this year. The Congress workers in Amethi and Rae Bareli don’t know what to do, we are all waiting for the announcement,” said a former office bearer of the Amethi Congress unit.

“The delay in announcing the candidates is making all of us nervous because there are rumours that eventually neither Rahul nor Priyanka will contest… if that happens, the Congress can forget ever winning these seats again and it should just pack up in UP,” he said.

Robert Vadra pitching for self

What has added to the confusion is the expression of interest to contest either seat that Robert Vadra, Priyanka’s hugely controversial husband, has been making repeatedly.

Irani has already jabbed Rahul and the Congress over Vadra’s comments and BJP workers in Amethi and Rae Bareli have, sources say, been going around the two constituencies “scaring” locals that damaad ji (Sonia’s son-in-law) is “eyeing their land and property”. Earlier this month, posters had also come up in the two constituencies urging Vadra to contest the polls if Rahul and Priyanka don’t.

An office-bearer of the Amethi Congress claims these posters were the “handiwork of the BJP” and insists that “there is absolutely no truth to Vadra contesting from here... he is in the habit of making such comments before every election, but unfortunately no one in the family seems to stop him… he damages the party”.

CEC leaves it to siblings

A member of the Congress election committee (CEC) told The Federal that the panel had “left it to Rahul and Priyanka to decide whether they wish to contest from Amethi and Rae Bareli, respectively, or swap the two seats among them”. The CEC member said the siblings had “neither expressed an interest nor declined to contest” and joked that “just like the media, we in the party are also only guessing whether they will eventually contest or not”.

“They may have spoken about it to the CP (Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge), but they have certainly not shared their view with the CEC or any other office bearer as far as I know,” the CEC member added.

Congress workers clueless

A close aide of the Gandhi family who manages the party’s grassroots work in Amethi and Rae Bareli also pleaded ignorance of whether Rahul and Priyanka will fight the polls from either seat.

“The only instruction I have received from them so far is to ensure that groundwork for the campaign proceeds irrespective of when the party names the candidate or who it names. We have been working for the past few months to identify booth agents in both the constituencies. In Amethi, we have also identified issues on which we can corner Smriti Irani… she has not fulfilled any of her poll promises and the public is very angry with her. However, it is true that like us the voters are also waiting for the party to announce the candidate; till that happens, our campaign cannot really take off… party workers are visiting every household and talking about the Congress’ guarantees but obviously they are asked who the candidate will be and they don’t know what to say?”

Sources said the Congress is likely to announce the Amethi and Rae Bareli candidates latest by Sunday (April 28) and that senior party leaders as well as top leaders of the SP could make a fresh backchannel appeal to the Gandhi siblings to not opt out of the poll fray. The big question, until then, is will Rahul and Priyanka agree?