Today in Politics: Amid uncertainty over Rahul, Priyanka bids, Congress set to end Amethi, Rae Bareli suspense

After a long delay, the Congress is expected to finally announce its candidates for the traditional Nehru-Gandhi seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday.Uncertainty has continued to prevail among Congress leaders and workers alike as to whether Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would contest from these seats or not.

The deadline to file nominations for Amethi and Rae Bareli is on Friday. These seats are going to polls in the fifth phase on May 20.

During a press conference Wednesday, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said a decision would be made regarding these seats “in the next 24 hours”. He also said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge would take the call as he has been authorised by the Congress’s Central Election Committee (CEC) in this regard.

Though the Congress leadership wants both Rahul and Priyanka to contest and has not shortlisted any other names, sources claimed that both appear reluctant to contest, and last-minute efforts were said to be on to convince them to enter the fray, as reported by Manoj C G.

While a large section of the party leadership believes that the Gandhis not contesting from the Hindi heartland would send a negative political message, the perception of potentially three members of the Gandhi family being in Parliament could open up a line of attack from the BJP. The BJP has been slamming the Opposition INDIA bloc over “parivarvaad” (dynastic politics), often arguing that almost all the parties in the alliance are controlled by families.

A Congress section believes Priyanka should contest from Amethi against sitting MP and Union minister Smriti Irani and Rahul should move to Rae Bareli.

In the