Capping suspense over the Congress candidates for Amethi and Rae Bareli, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge will announce the candidates for the high-profile seats on Thursday.
With only two days left for the nomination process, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on Wednesday that the party's central election committee (CEC) has empowered Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to finalise the candidates for the two seats, which will be announced in the "next 24-30 hours."
Both Amethi and Rae Bareli are traditional pocket boroughs of the Gandhi-Nehru family and its members have represented the seats for several decades. However, Rahul Gandhi lost to BJP candidate and Union Minister Smriti Irani in 2019.
However, there are reports that Rahul Gandhi is likely to contest from Rae Bareli this time, though the final decision has to come from the party. Though Priyanka Gandhi is keen to contest from the Rae Bareli seat, Rahul Gandhi is not favourable to the idea, considering the criticism of dynasty politics by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the Congress leadership, PTI quoted sources.
Rahul does not want all three members of the Gandhi family to be in parliament, the report added.
Rahul Gandhi has said earlier that he will follow "whatever order" he gets from his party. The Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies go to polls on May 20 in the fifth round of the seven-phase general elections.
Asked if there was a delay in fielding the candidates and if the Congress was scared of fielding Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, Ramesh said, "There is no delay. Has the BJP not announced its candidates in Raebareli? Smriti Irani is a sitting MP. Nobody is scared, discussions are ongoing, the Congress president has been authorised. There is no delay, there is time till May 3," he said.
Meanwhile, the state leadership in Uttar Pradesh has already urged the central election committee and the party leadership to field Rahul Gandhi from Amethi and Priyanka from Rae Bareli.
As speculation mounted, the Congress workers in Amethi on Tuesday also held a sit-in and demanded that the party name a member of the Gandhi family as its candidate from the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency.
The Rae Bareli constituency was represented by Sonia Gandhi from 2004 to 2024. Prior to that, Sonia Gandhi had represented the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency after she entered politics and contested for the first time in 1999. The seat has previously been represented by Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.
The Congress has forged an alliance with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and is contesting 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The Lok Sabha polls are being held in seven phases starting April 19. The counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.
(With PTI inputs)
