Lok Sabha elections 2024: Congress's delay in announcing a candidate for Uttar Pradesh's Amethi seat is testing the patience of the local party unit. On Tuesday, the unit staged a sit-in protest demanding that the party appoint a member of the Gandhi family as its candidate for the seat. Amethi will vote in the fifth phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on May 20.
The protest by the Congress workers came as there are only three days left until the deadline for filing nomination papers, but the party has not yet announced a candidate for the seat.
Senior leaders of the party, including Amethi district president Pradeep Singhal and former district president Yogendra Mishra, gathered at the party office with posters that read: Amethi leads Rahul Gandhi. Amethi Maange Priyanka Gandhi (Amethi wants Rahul Gandhi or (his sister) Priyanka Gandhi Vadra)”.
“People of the constituency and Congress workers want a member of the Gandhi family as their candidate. We want Rahul Gandhi to take on Amethi to bring back the lost honour,” the party's district spokesperson Anil Singh said.
Congress's U-turn in Amethi
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress got the biggest shock in Amethi when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Smriti Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi. The Amethi Lok Sabha seat was considered the bastion of the Congress as former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, his brother Sanjay Gandhi and his wife Sonia Gandhi represented it in the lower house of Parliament.
Rahul Gandhi still made it to Parliament when he won the Wayanad elections, but losing Amethi was tantamount to losing prestige for the Congress. BJP has nominated Smriti Irani as its candidate for Amethi, but buzz continues in Congress circles over whether members of the Gandhi family will contest from their seats.
The local Congress unit is demanding that Gandhi's family members continue to fight the elections from their seats, but the party high command seems concerned about the optics.
(With inputs from PTI)
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Published: Apr 30, 2024 7:55 PM IST