Congress leader Rahul Gandhi files his Lok Sabha nomination papers from Rae Bareli on Friday, May 3.
LIVE: Rahul Gandhi files LS nomination from Rae Bareli
Rahul will be contesting against BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh while KL Sharma will lock horns with sitting MP Smriti Irani in Amethi
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday (May 3) filed his nomination papers from the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, a constituency held by his mother Sonia Gandhi for the last two decades.
He was accompanied by Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Rahul arrived at the Fursatganj airport earlier in the day. Local party workers turned up in large numbers at the collectorate where he filed his papers. Voting in the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat will be held on May 20.
Rahul is also contesting Lok Sabha elections from Wayanad constituency in Kerala.
Earlier, the Congress announced that Rahul Gandhi will contest from Rae Bareli while party leader Kishori Lal Sharma will run from Amethi, ending the suspense over its choice of candidates for the two Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha seats.
Rahul in 2019 lost the Gandhi family bastion of Amethi to BJP’s Smriti Irani. Irani has already filed her candidature from the seat.
The BJP on Thursday (May 3) announced Dinesh Pratap Singh as its candidate from Rae Bareli. He had lost to Sonia in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Sources earlier said that the Congress has prepared the grandson of former Congress leader and Indira Gandhi's aunt Sheila Kaul as an alternative candidate for Amethi.
Pressure on Gandhis to run from 'bastions'
There was immense pressure on the Gandhi family by the Uttar Pradesh leadership of the Congress to contest both the seats.
The members of the Congress central election committee had also urged the party leadership to field both Rahul and Priyanka from these seats.
The Amethi seat has been represented by Rahul from 2004 and he remained MP from there for three consecutive terms till 2019. He currently represents Kerala's Wayanad constituency from where he has contested this time also.
The Rae Bareli constituency was represented by Sonia from 2004 to 2024 and is considered as the traditional pocket borough of the Gandhi-Nehru family.
Prior to this, Sonia had represented the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency after she entered politics and contested for the first time in 1999.
The seat has previously been represented by Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi.
The Congress has forged an alliance with Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh as part of the INDIA bloc and is contesting 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Polling for the general elections began on April 19. The counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.
Live Updates
- 3 May 2024 1:26 PM IST
Rahul fighting from Rae Bareli sensing Wayanad defeat: PM Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that Congress’ tally in the Lok Sabha polls will be an “all-time low”, as he mocked its leader Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli seat, “sensing defeat” at Wayanad where he is a sitting MP.
Addressing a rally in the Bardhaman-Durgapur Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal, Modi said that if Congress is voted to power, it would “snatch” quotas meant for the Scheduled Caste, Dalits and OBCs and give those to its “jihadi vote bank” to pursue the party’s “appeasement politics”.
Modi also slammed the opposition bloc INDIA and Congress for “supporting” the "vote jihad" comments made by a candidate of the Samajwadi Party (SP), an ally of the grand old party in Uttar Pradesh.
“There is no need for opinion polls or exit polls, as I had talked about their (Congress) defeat long back in Parliament. When their senior leader quit her Lok Sabha seat and entered Parliament through Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan, it was evident that they sensed defeat,” Modi said, in an apparent dig at Sonia Gandhi.
“Now, the ‘shehzada’ of Congress, who went to Wayanad (Kerala) after losing the Amethi seat, is also contesting from Rae Bareli. He knows he would lose Wayanad this time,” Modi said, referring to Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from Rae Bareli.
- 3 May 2024 1:24 PM IST
They've accepted their defeat: Smriti Irani
Union Minister Smriti Irani, who currently represents Amethi constituency in the Lok Sabha, on Friday stated that the Gandhi family not fighting from Amethi shows that “they have accepted their defeat here”. Irani is now pitted against Congress' KL Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi clan.
