Rahul Gandhi will contest from Amethi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections while his sister , Priyanka Gandhi, can contest from Varanasi, UP Congress chief Ajay Rai said.

Varanasi (UP): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be pitted against Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani in 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi while his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra can contest “wherever she wishes” from, the party’s newly-appointed state chief Ajay Rai said on Friday.

“Rahul Gandhi will absolutely contest from Amethi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,” Ajay Rai said, adding that Rahul’s sister, Priyanka Gandhi, can contest from Varanasi if she wishes and is free to choose her own constituency for contesting the polls.

“If Priyanka Gandhi wishes to contest from Varanasi, every worker would strive to make her win,” Rai added.

On Thursday, Ajay Rai was appointed as the he president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge. “Congress President has appointed Ajay Rai, ex MLA as the President of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee with immediate effect,” the release of All India Congress Committee stated.

Ajay Rai was the Congress candidate in Varanasi both in 2014 and 2019 and lost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Moreover, businessman Robert Vadra early strongly pitched for his wife and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi to fight the 2024 general elections, saying people will feel good if she comes to Lok Sabha and the party could field her from a seat such as Amethi or Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

“…I feel Priyanka should reach the Parliament first and people will feel good if she comes to Lok Sabha. Be it Amethi or Sultanpur, wherever the party seems fitting, I would like her to contest the Lok Sabha election..,” Vadra told news agency ANI.

Rahul Gandhi and the Wayanad, Amethi dilemma

Rahul Gandhi, who currently represents Kerala’s Wayanad constituency, had also contested from his legacy seat, Amethi, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, However, the Gandhi scion shockingly lost the seat to BJP’s Smriti Irani, in what many consider as a major upset in the 2019 LS polls. Nonetheless, Rahul managed to book his ticket to the Upper House as he won from Wayanad.

On March 24 this year, a court in Gujarat’s Surat convicted Gandhi in the criminal defamation case and handed him a two-year prison term—the maximum possible sentence under Section 499 IPC—leading to him being automatically disqualified from the Lok Sabha.

However, in a major relief for the Congress scion, the Supreme Court on August 4 stayed his conviction in the case.- Following the apex court’s ruling paving Rahul Gandhi was reinstated as an MP in the Lok Sabha, paving way for him to contest in the next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

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