Why Priyanka not appear with Rahul Gandhi | In Rae Bareli
Since Amethi is no longer a family seat, Rahul would find it simpler to justify giving up Wayanad should he defeat Rae Bareli. In Priyanka’s instance, the Gandhi family did not want to provide the BJP with a means of attack in the event that all three Gandhis ended up in Parliament.
With a twist, the Congress on Friday revealed its nominees for the Gandhi family’s historic seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, putting an end to weeks of speculation and uncertainty. Senior leader Rahul Gandhi has moved to Rae Bareli, which is presumably a safer seat than Amethi, where he was defeated by Union minister Smriti Irani in 2019. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the general secretary of the AICC, and his sister are not running for office.
The declaration was made on the final day nominations could be submitted for the two seats, which are up for election on May 20.
Kishorilal Sharma, a well-known spokesman for the Nehru-Gandhi family in Amethi and Rae Bareli for more than 20 years, has been fielded by the party in Amethi.
After 25 years, there won’t be another Gandhi from Amethi fighting for his cause. This is where Sonia Gandhi first stood for election in 1999, one year after becoming the head of the Congress. She moved to Rae Bareli in 2004, allowing Rahul to win the seat for the first time.
Party officials claim that Rahul’s move to Rae Bareli is mostly due to Amethi’s defeat in 2019—it is no longer a family seat. Furthermore, it will be simpler to give up the Kerala seat if Rahul wins both Wayanad, where he is also running, and Rae Bareli, noting the family’s even older connection to Rae Bareli as well as Sonia’s personal one. Wayanad had its election on April 26.
Of course, there’s the silent terror of losing again in Amethi. But Rahul’s choice to not run for the seat would undoubtedly provoke accusations that he “fled” from Irani.
At first, it was reported that Rahul and Priyanka were hesitant to become involved. In the event that Rahul won Rae Bareli, he said that he would be unable to leave Wayanad if the Kerala seat voted for him a second time.
Concerns were also raised regarding how this would affect the Congress’s prospects of winning the Kerala Assembly elections in 2026.
When Priyanka was urged to run, she turned it down. According to insiders, Rahul eventually caved in to the overwhelming party consensus that the Gandhis’ decision not to run from the Hindi heartland would send the wrong political message.
Hours after the BJP named Uttar Pradesh minister Dinesh Pratap Singh as its candidate from Rae Bareli, the Congress released its ticket. Irani has already submitted her Amethi nomination.
Singh has also run from Rae Bareli in 2019. Even though he was defeated by Sonia, he was able to cut her 2014 majority in half.
The Congress did not want both Priyanka and Rahul to run because, as Sonia is already a member of the Rajya Sabha, the BJP would have an opportunity to hone its dynasty line of attack against the Congress if both Priyanka and Rahul were to win.
Rahul’s 2019 involvement into the Wayanad race contributed to the Congress’s landslide victory in the Kerala Lok Sabha elections. But in the Assembly, the party lost, as the LDF, led by the CPI(M), made history by winning a second term in office in a row, defying Kerala’s political tradition of switching governments every five years. This makes the 2026 Assembly elections crucial for the Congress.
Only three times since Independence have the Congress lost Amethi and Rae Bareli, who are also represented by other family members including Indira, Rajiv, and Sanjay. During the post-Emergency elections in 1977, Indira Gandhi notably lost to Raj Narain of Rae Bareli. In the general elections of 1996 and 1998, the Congress lost the seat once more without Gandhi. But since then, it hasn’t been vanquished there.
In a same vein, the Congress lost in Amethi in 1977, 1998 (the election in which Gandhi did not run), and 2019.
Rahul, an Amethi MP who was elected twice, lost the state by more over 55,000 votes in 2019. Although Sonia, the Rae Bareli MP since 2004 and the only seat the Congress won from Uttar Pradesh in 2019, she was able to hold onto it with a margin that decreased from 3.52 lakh votes in 2014 to 1.69 lakh votes.
In 1952 and 1957, Feroze Gandhi served as Rae Bareli’s representative. Despite having joined the Rajya Sabha in 1964, Indira made her Lok Sabha debut in Rae Bareli in 1967. Prior to losing in 1977, she had won the seat once more in 1971. In a unified Andhra Pradesh in 1980, Indira ran and won from both Rae Bareli and Medak, then decided to hold onto the Medak seat.
The Gandhi family’s connection to Amethi started in 1980, when Sanjay Gandhi won the seat in his first election and joined Parliament. Following Sanjay’s passing, Rajiv ran for office from Amethi in 1981 and remained there till his passing in 1991. When Sonia made her electoral debut in 1999, the Gandhis were back in Amethi after an eight-year hiatus.
