Why has Rahul Gandhi chosen Rae Bareli over Amethi? Why is Priyanka not contesting polls?

The suspense is over. The Congress’ last-minute announcement on the two big Lok Sabha seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh has delivered a big twist, surprising many. The Congress has announced that Rahul Gandhi will be contesting the polls from Rae Bareli rather than Amethi, while his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, will skip the polls altogether.

The announcement came on the last day of filing nominations for the two seats, which go to the polls on 20 May, phase five of the elections.

While Rahul will contest from his mother’s seat — Sonia Gandhi has been the MP since 2004 — the Gandhis’ close confidante, Kishori Lal Sharma, has been selected to contest from Amethi against BJP’s sitting MP Smriti Irani.

We analyse the reasons behind the Congress’ move and what it means for the party in the ongoing elections.

Rahul’s switch to Rae Bareli

After
days of suspense and consultations
, the Congress announced on Friday (3 May) that Rahul would be switching from Amethi, a seat he lost to Smriti Irani in 2019, to Rae Bareli. Notably, Rahul is also contesting the polls from Kerala’s Wayanad.

With this, Rahul will be up against BJP’s choice of Uttar Pradesh minister
Dinesh Pratap Singh
. In 2019 too, Singh had contested from Rae Bareli. While he lost to Sonia Gandhi, he had managed to halve her majority from 2014.

Meanwhile, Gandhi loyalist
Kishori Lal Sharma
has been selected for the Amethi seat and will be up against BJP’s Smriti Irani. Interestingly, this will be the first time after 25 years that no Gandhi will be in the fray from Amethi. Sonia had made her electoral debut from here back in 1999, a year after she took over as Congress president.

Earlier, everyone had suspected that while Rahul would contest from one of the two seats, Priyanka would make her poll debut from the other.

With Rahul’s switch to Rae Bareli, the UP constituency continues its years-long affair with the
Gandhis and its friends
. It was first represented in the Lok Sabha by Rahul’s grandfather, Feroze Gandhi, who held the seat in the first two elections after Independence.

Following him, his wife, Indira Gandhi, represented Rae Bareli in 1967, 1971 and 1980. However, in 1980, she had also chosen Medak from Telangana to contest the polls and when she won from both, she chose to retain Medak.

The only time the Congress did not represent the seat was in the wake of the Emergency in 1977 when Janata Party’s Raj Narain defeated Indira Gandhi, who was then the prime minister, and BJP’s Ashoke Singh in 1996 and 1998.

When Sonia Gandhi entered politics, she chose neighbouring Amethi as her seat, but then vacated it in 2004 for her son Rahul.

Sonia Gandhi subsequently held Rae Bareli four times between 2004 and 2019, although of late, her winning margins had begun dwindling.

And it was in February this year that Sonia announced that she would not be contesting polls, and in her farewell message to the people of Rae Bareli, she had expressed confidence that the seat which always stood by her and the Gandhis will continue to support her family in future also.

Factors that influenced Congress’ decision

But what led the Congress to make such a decision? Poll pundits and analysts believe that there are a couple of factors that drove the party to this move.

Firstly, Rahul’s loss to
Smriti Irani
in 2019. The party believes that the Amethi seat is no longer a safe one. Many in Amethi have expressed their displeasure at the former Congress president, complaining that he neglected them even when he was their MP.

“Does he look serious to you? Why did he abandon us for Wayanad? Even when he was our MP, he would rarely come and he would bring his friends from Delhi to show them around. No work was done,” said an Amethi local to News18 on Rahul.

Moreover, by moving Rahul away from Amethi, it avoids the daily slanging match with Smriti Irani, that could derail the Lok Sabha campaign plan. As a senior Congress leader told Deccan Herald, “Then it will become a Rahul versus Smriti fight. You know electronic media. We don’t want to make it a personality war. It is a war of ideas. We have set an agenda and it will go for a toss if Rahul fights from Amethi.”

Additionally, if Rahul is to win from Wayanad and Rae Bareli, it would be easier for him to give up the constituency in Kerala, citing his family’s age-old ties with the UP constituency.

No poll debut for Priyanka

Besides Rahul, another notable aspect of the announcement was Priyanka’s absence from the polls. Many had assumed that Priyanka would contest the 2024 elections. In fact, NDTV reports that Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge had requested Priyanka to contest from Amethi or Rae Bareli, but she refused.

Sources speaking to NDTV said that her refusal to contest the polls stems from the fact that if she and her brother both won, it would put three Gandhi members in Parliament — her mother, Sonia, is now a Rajya Sabha MP — and this would reinforce the BJP’s charge of dynastic politics.

But there are others in the party who fear that her decision to abstain from contesting the polls will hurt the party’s image among the voters. They believe that it will reassert the BJP’s claim that the Gandhis are afraid of them. Many feel that the Congress could have benefited from her star power if she contested the polls, reported NDTV.

How this could hurt the Congress

While some consider the Congress’ move a well-thought out plan, there are others who believe that it will only hurt the party in the ongoing polls and even in the long-run.

With Rahul’s move from Amethi to Rae Bareli, the BJP will be able to sell it as the Gandhis being afraid. A News18 report, which cites sources, said that the BJP will project amongst the people that Rahul Gandhi deserted Amethi in fear of losing to Irani, and that there is no stopping her record win from Amethi now.

In fact, shortly after the announcement was made, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an election rally in Bardhaman-Durgapur said, “Fearing defeat in Wayanad and Amethi, Rahul Gandhi decided to run from Rae Bareli.”

Even Union Minister and BJP Hamirpur candidate Anurag Thakur echoed similar comments. Speaking to ANI, he said, “Sometime back Rahul Gandhi used to say ‘daro mat, daro mat’ (don’t be scared), now due to fear, from Amethi to Wayanad and Wayanad to Rae Bareli indicates his fear towards defeat.”

The BJP will also use Rahul’s switch to Rae Bareli to their advantage. They will tell voters not to vote for Rahul there as he will leave this seat too and retain Wayanad if he wins both.

This, in fact, has been a worry for Rahul too. According to an Indian Express report, the former Congress chief was hesitant of contesting a second seat, arguing that he could not leave Wayanad in the event of winning Rae Bareli, if the Kerala seat voted for him a second time.

There’s also concern that if he does so it could impact the Congress’s chances in the 2026 Assembly elections in Kerala.

Will the Congress gamble pay off? Or will it be beneficial to the BJP? We will have to wait until 4 June when the results are declared.