Rahul Gandhi to contest key seat in Uttar Pradesh in India polls
Gandhi will contest the election in Raebareli, the Indian National Congress said
New Delhi: India's main opposition party selected Rahul Gandhi as its candidate to contest a key seat in Uttar Pradesh state previously held by his mother.
Gandhi will contest the election in Raebareli, the Indian National Congress said in a post on social media platform X on Friday, a seat that Sonia Gandhi held for four terms. Rahul Gandhi is also contesting elections from Wayanad constituency in the southern state of Kerala.
The party will field Kishori Lal Sharma as its candidate for Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, a seat it lost to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 elections.
The announcement ends weeks of speculation over who will contest the election in the Gandhi family strongholds. Rahul's sister Priyanka, who is the Congress party's general secretary, was seen as a possible contender for one of the posts.
Elections are currently underway in India for the 543 seats in the lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha. The BJP is widely expected to win a majority, giving Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third term in power.
The Gandhi siblings belong to the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty. Their great grandfather, grandmother and father were all prime ministers of India. Their father Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991. His widow Sonia led the party when a Congress-led alliance last held power from 2004-2014, with Manmohan Singh as the country's prime minister.
Rahul Gandhi, 53, remains the face of the Congress party even after resigning as its president in 2019 following the party's routing in the elections against Modi's BJP. Critics have questioned Gandhi's leadership abilities, while he's often portrayed by Modi and the BJP as being out of touch with voters.