Lok Sabha Polls ’24 | Rahul Gandhi in Rae Bareli, why not Amethi

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The early morning announcement on Friday by the Indian National Congress to field its former president Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh triggered off a wave of reactions from the Bharatiya Janata Party, mocking the move.

Rahul Gandhi, who represented the neighbouring Amethi constituency for three straight terms since 2004, lost in 2019 to Union Minister Smriti Irani and over the last few months, the party dared the Wayanad MP to re-enter the fray from this constituency.

Now when the Congress declared that it will be Rae Bareli and not Amethi for Rahul Gandhi, the BJP likened the move as chickening out from a contest in a constituency considered a bastion of the Grand Old Party.

Under the electoral pact with Samajwadi Party, a member of the I.N.D.I. Alliance, the Congress was allotted 17 constituencies including its strongholds of Amethi and Rae Bareli. The Congress could not back off from committing to field at least one member of the family from either constituency. 

Speculation was rife that while Rahul Gandhi could re-enter from Amethi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra may throw her hat in the ring from Rae Bareli. Had this happened, the BJP would have been in glee for entrapping the brother-sister duo between now and May 20, when these constituencies vote in the fifth phase. The party star campaigners would then have to devote a major portion of their energies for themselves and slice off commitment in other constituencies.

Rahul Shying Away From Amethi?

Denied another opportunity to engage the former Congress President in Amethi, the BJP is bound to whip it up as a campaign point of Rahul Gandhi shying away from a ‘real’ contest in a gladiatorial manner. Voter in Amethi would respond through a vote on May 20 as joint opposition candidate Kishori Lal Sharma, a point person in the Nehru-Gandhi constituencies, would challenge incumbent Smriti Irani.

The Congress does not have to oblige the opponent  and address the latter’s political point. The party may also have relied on its own surveys reflecting the electoral ground in Amethi does not offer certainty of Rahul Gandhi romping home a victor. Rae Bareli will take care of the perception that Congress has little or no stakes in UP, a state that gave the party leaders who became Prime Ministers. A case of  pragmatic practice riding over emotions.  

By deciding against fielding Priyanka from these two seats, the Congress also denied the BJP a chance to shout from the roof-top about ‘dynasts’ and provide further fuel to the shrill campaign about the real intent behind the grand opposition platform. Top BJP leaders continue to charge that the I.N.D.I. Alliance was a coming together of opportunistic parties worried about protecting ‘dynasty’.

Having blunted this BJP weapon, Priyanka can continue with her campaigning elsewhere while Rahul Gandhi can draw a less hectic campaign schedule in the constituency, represented by his mother and nurtured by his sister. At present, of the five assembly constituencies here four are held by the Samajwadi Party and one by the BJP’s Aditi Singh who switched sides from the Congress.

Congress Deep Dive In Rae Bareli

Since it was carved out as a separate constituency in 1967, barring three occasions, Amethi remained with the Congress and voted for the Nehru-Gandhi family including Indira Gandhi in 1967 and later too.. The only time voters in Amethi decided in favour of another party was when Raj Narain of the Janata Party defeated Indira Gandhi in the post-emergency elections of 1977, and the BJP in 1998 and 2019.

Amethi was a constituency which voted for Rahul Gandhi’s uncle, Sanjay Gandhi, father Rajiv Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi. As such in 2004  it was natural for him to test electoral waters from what was one of the safest seats for the party in UP. That momentum was interrupted five years ago and this time around the BJP hoped to engage him again.

However, the party preferred to move him to Rae Bareli, a seat held since 2004 by his mother, who decided against re-contesting. Many attributed the decision to health conditions of the former Congress president who since became a Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan.

These developments offered the BJP an opportunity to suggest that the Gandhis’, had all but abandoned the idea of challenging the party in UP, a state which sends the largest contingent of 80 MPs.

Now, apart from being a constituency that elected Sonia Gandhi on five occasions, Rae Bareli has favoured the Congress on 17 out of 20 occasions when the people there were asked to vote its MP. The first representative was Feroze Gandhi, grandfather of Rahul Gandhi, and later  his grandmother Indira Gandhi and later a close family friend Satish Sharma.

Interestingly, in 1999 Sharma faced another family member Arun Nehru, as a BJP candidate. However, the cousin of Rajiv Gandhi was defeated and among the chief campaigners then was Priyanka Gandhi who gently chided the people of Rae Bareli, how could they allow a person who “committed treachery” and ‘stabbed a brother in the back… how did he dare come here?’ 

Facing Rahul Gandhi will be Dinesh Pratap Singh of the BJP, who is touted as one connected with grassroot and a familiar political figure in Rae Bareli, just as Sharma, the Congress candidate from Amethi.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow