Sonia Gandhi opts for Rajya Sabha, Priyanka may make poll debut from Raebareli in LS elections

Barely a month ahead of the expected announcement of the Lok Sabha election schedule, Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi has opted for a Rajya Sabha berth instead of contesting again from Raebareli that she has represented since 2004. Her decision to take the Upper House route triggered talk in party circles about her daughter and All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra may make her electoral debut from Raebareli in the parliamentary polls.

Gandhi will contest from Rajasthan, where the Congress is in a position to win one of the three seats up for grabs in the February 27 polls. Her decision to contest from Rajasthan and not from the vacancies available in the southern states of Telangana or Karnataka, where the party is in government, is aimed at sending a signal that the Gandhi family is not abandoning the Hindi heartland. Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from Wayanad and Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections came in for criticism both inside and outside the party.

The Congress was routed in the Hindi heartland in 2019, with Rahul himself losing from Amethi to current Union Minister Smriti Irani. The drubbing was so severe that the party drew a blank in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, won only one seat in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, and managed just two seats in Chhattisgarh. Sources said Rahul might contest again from Amethi and Wayanad and Priyanka could replace her mother in the family borough of Raebareli.

Sonia became an MP for the first time in 1999 from Amethi, a seat once represented by her late husband Rajiv Gandhi. She shifted to Rae Bareli in 2004, leaving Amethi for Rahul. Sonia will become the