As suspense continues over the Congress candidates in Amethi and Raebareli, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi are holding a meeting to decide on its nominees for the high-profile seats.
The meeting is held in Karnataka, where Gandhi has gone for election campaigning. According to an NDTV report, Rahul is likely to contest from one of these seats while party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra remains firm on her decision not to contest.
Both Amethi and Raebareli are traditional pocket boroughs of the Gandhi-Nehru family and its members represented the seats for several decades. However, Rahul lost Amethi to BJP candidate and Union Minister Smriti Irani in 2019.
Some reports suggested that Rahul is likely to contest from Raebareli this time. Quoting sources, PTI reported that Priyanka is also keen to contest from the Raebareli seat, but Rahul is not favourable to the idea, considering the criticism of dynasty politics by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the Congress leadership.
A decision is likely on Thursday as the last date for filing nominations for the seats is May 3.
As speculations mounted on the two seats, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on Wednesday that "nobody is scared" and a decision on the matter would be announced in the next 24-30 hours.
He said that the party's central election committee (CEC) has empowered Kharge to finalise the candidates.
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 Raebareli.
