- Sunday, November 24, 2024
Rahul Gandhi, one of India’s main opposition leader, was set to return to the constituency of Amethi which he lost in 2019 to Smriti Irani of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
By: Shubham Ghosh
PRIYANKA Gandhi Vadra, one of the top leaders of the Indian National Congress, India’s main opposition party, is set to make her electoral debut in the upcoming general elections from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The 52-year-old Gandhi Vadra, who is the daughter of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and sister of Congress parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi, will contest from the constituency of Raebareli, which has been vacated by her ailing mother ahead of this election, India’s NDTV reported citing sources.
Raebareli is the only parliamentary constituency that the Congress has at the moment in Uttar Pradesh, a state which it dominated in the past.
Gandhi Vadra, who is the Congress’s general secretary since 2020, has been into the Grand Old Party’s organisational work in Uttar Pradesh and launched the Congress’s campaign for the state election in Uttar Pradesh in 2022.
Read: India election 2024 profiles: Rahul Gandhi, still looking for a win over Modi
Raebareli has been a stronghold of the Congress where Sonia Gandhi was elected continuously since 2004. Former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, Gandhi Vadra’s grandmother, and the former’s husband, Feroze Gandhi, had also been elected MPs from this constituency.
There was also speculation that Gandhi Vadra could challenge prime minister Narendra Modi in his constituency Varanasi in eastern Uttar Pradesh but now it looks she will be contesting to maintain her family’s legacy in Raebareli.
Read: Sonia Gandhi, India’s top opposition leader, not to contest 2024 general polls
Sonia Gandhi, 77, decided against contesting the parliamentary elections this time citing health concerns and shifted to the Rajya Sabha or the Upper House of the Indian parliament which is not popularly elected.
Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, will return to contest the election from Amethi, another stronghold of the Congress party which he lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Smriti Irani, who is the current women and child welfare minister of India, in 2019, the NDTV report added.
However, Gandhi will also contest from Wayanad in the southern state of Kerala, a seat that he won to retain his parliamentarian’s status despite losing Amethi.
Gandhi made his electoral debut in Amethi in the 2004 election and won in 2009 and 2014 as well, when he beat Irani.
