The Congress party on Friday announced its candidate from the Rae Bareli constituency, Rahul Gandhi, its sitting MP from Kerala's Wayanad will be contesting from the erstwhile Sonia Gandhi seat in the Lok Sabha elections 2024. The much-awaited decision came as the party opened its Lok Sabha cards today. He will be contesting against Bharatiya Janata Party's Dinesh Pratap. Rae Bareli is set to go to the polls in the fifth phase on May 20.
Who Is Dinesh Pratap Singh?
Dinesh Pratap Singh is currently serving as a minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet in Uttar Pradesh. It is for the second time that the saffron camp has trusted Singh to contest from Raebareli. He had contested against Sonia Gandhi in 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli, however, he lost to the Congress bastion by a margin of nearly 1.6 lakh votes. It is to be noted that he he did receive a total of 38 percent votes, the highest number of votes among all BJP candidates in the history of Raebareli.
He has also been elected as a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council thrice in 2010, 2016, and 2022.
Congress Announces Rahul Gandhi As Rae Bareli Candidate
The decision came on the last day of filing nominations for the seats (Rae Bareli & Amethi), the Congress kept the suspense going for the prestigious constituencies for months. The party did not disclose the names of the candidates in the latest list of names for the Lok Sabha polls released on Tuesday. The last date for filing nominations for both seats is Friday, May 3.
Notably, this move comes after Priyanka Gandhi's husband and businessman Robert Vadra had expressed an interest in contesting polls from the grand-old-party-stronghold seat. Speculation was rife as posters with his photos were seen outside the party's local office earlier last month.
The Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) left the decision to choose the candidates of Amethi and Rae Bareli to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. Earlier last week, at the CEC meeting in the national capital, the members demanded that the Wayanad MP must contest from Amethi against Union Minister Smriti Irani and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra be fielded to contest from her mother Sonia Gandhi’s erstwhile seat, Rae Bareli.
It is to be noted that Rahul Gandhi has already contested polls from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, which went to polls on April 26, and voting in both Amethi and Rae Bareli is scheduled for May 20. Both Rae Bareli and Amethi are considered to be Congress's stronghold. Though Rahul Gandhi won from Amethi in 2004, 2009, and 2014, he lost the parliamentary seat to Irani in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Now the party cadres want the seat to be wrested from the BJP.