Days after the Congress-SP seat-sharing announcement, Congress got the traditional RaeBareli seat, and Sonia Gandhi chose to move to Rajya Sabha. Speculations of Priyanka Gandhi contesting from the seat have taken pace.
Supporters of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi have put up posters in the constituency demanding that the party leadership field her as the candidate for the Lok Sabha seat. The Raebareli seat has been a Gandhi seat since 1952, when Firoz Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi’s grandfather, contested it.
From 1967 to 1977, Indira Gandhi held the seat. Later, for a brief period of three years, a non-congress member was elected from the seat. Raj Narayan of the Janata Party won. The election was the first election after the emergency.
In 1980, Indira Gandhi contested two seats, Raebareli and Medak, in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. She won both seats. Later, Gandhi retained the Medak seat and relinquished the Raebareli seat.
The seat continued to be a Congress seat and in 2004 Sonia Gandhi contested from the seat vacating the Amethi seat another Gandhi bastion for Rahul Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi continued to contest the seat in the subsequent elections.
Now that Sonia Gandhi has vacated the seat, there is a high chance that Priyanka Gandhi will contest the seat. According to Congress District President Pradeep Singhal, Rahul Gandhi will contest from the Amethi seat. For those who don’t know, as per the SP-Congress pact, the SP will contest 63 seats and the Congress on 17 seats.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
