Priyanka Gandhi’s poll launch from Raebareli, Amethi for Rahul Gandhi

Mangalore Today /NDTV

New Delhi, march 06, 2024: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will likely make her electoral debut from the party’s Uttar Pradesh stronghold of Raebareli - a seat won thrice by ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi - sources told NDTV Wednesday. Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, may return to the Congress’ other UP stronghold - Amethi - which he lost in a shock defeat to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Smriti Irani in 2019.

Mr Gandhi will also fight from his current seat of Wayanad in Kerala; victory here had allowed him to retain his Lok Sabha status after the last election.
Priyanka Gandhi’s Big Ticket Debut

There has always been a ’will she, won’t she’ air about Ms Gandhi Vadra and elections. Before 2019 she set tongues wagging after quipping "why not", when asked if she would contest from Varanasi - Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bastion.

Her entry now comes after her mother, ex-party boss Sonia Gandhi - said she would not seek re-election from Raebareli, a seat she has won five times in the past, including in 2019.

In that election she was the sole Congress leader to win a UP Lok Sabha seat.

Mrs Gandhi’s Lok Sabha-to-Rajya Sabha shift - she has been elected from Rajasthan - was supposed to signal a shift in party leadership before the general election.

As she did so, she made an emotional appeal to Raebareli’s voters, which has been won by a member of the Gandhi family in all but three general elections since independence.

After the Congress confirmed Sonia Gandhi’s withdrawal from Raebareli, there was speculation Priyanka Gandhi Vadra - whose resemblance to Indira Gandhi, her grandmother, had not gone unnoticed in the constituency - would finally contest an election.