Congress has announced its candidate from Rae Bareli seat of Uttar Pradesh. Congress has fielded its former president Rahul Gandhi from this seat of Sonia Gandhi. Voting on this seat is to be held in the fifth phase on May 20. On the last day of nomination for this seat, Congress announced Rahul's candidature from Rae Bareli.

Former Congress President Sonia Gandhi is the MP from this seat. In the 2019 general elections, Congress could win only one Lok Sabha seat in UP and that seat was Rae Bareli. In the 2024 elections, Rahul Gandhi will face the challenge of saving the last fort of the Gandhi family in UP. This time, Congress has entered the election field in alliance with Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party and the party is hopeful of a big victory in the stronghold of the Gandhi family.

Which candidate from which party?

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made Dinesh Pratap Singh, who comes from Congress, the candidate for Rae Bareli seat. Dinesh Pratap is also a minister in the Yogi government. Just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Dinesh left Hath and joined BJP. In the 2019 elections, BJP had also made Dinesh its candidate against Sonia Gandhi. 

There is an alliance between SP and Congress. Even when there was no alliance, SP had not fielded a candidate from this seat in support of Congress in the last few elections. BSP is making the election contest between Congress and BJP triangular. Mayawati led BSP has made Thakur Prasad Yadav its candidate from this seat. BSP's strategy is to create a new equation of Yadav and Dalit votes. However, if we look at the electoral history of Rae Bareli, when members of the Gandhi family contest the elections, the caste factor does not dominate this seat as much as it is seen in the surrounding seats. 

Rae Bareli's caste equation 

Talking about the caste and social equations of Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, there are about 11 percent Brahmin, about nine percent Rajput and seven percent Yadav caste voters here. The number of Dalit class voters is highest here. There are about 34 percent Dalit voters in Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency. Here Muslims are around 6 percent, Lodhs are 6 percent and Kurmis are around 4 percent. The number of voters from other castes is also estimated to be around 23 percent. There has been a trend in the Hindi belt to vote based on the caste of the candidate or the political party, but in Rae Bareli, the caste factor has been seen to be zero when a member of the Gandhi family contests the election.

Has old connection with Nehru-Gandhi family

Talking about the electoral history of Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, this seat has been in existence since the general elections of 1957. In the first elections of 1951-52, there used to be one Lok Sabha seat consisting of both Rae Bareli and Pratapgarh districts and then Firoz Gandhi, husband of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was elected MP from here.

After the Rae Bareli seat came into existence, Firoz Gandhi contested this seat in the second general election and reached the Parliament after winning the election. Congress candidates have won from this seat a total of 16 times including elections and by-elections, while non-Congress candidates have won thrice. The relationship between Rae Bareli and Nehru-Gandhi family is old. Former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi have represented this seat in Parliament.

Indira started electoral politics from Rae Bareli itself.

By-elections were held in 1960 for the Rae Bareli seat that became vacant due to the death of journalist-turned-politician Firoz Gandhi. In this by-election and in the 1962 elections, no member of the Nehru-Gandhi family contested from this seat. Indira Gandhi made her political debut as a Rajya Sabha member in 1964 and then started electoral politics from Rae Bareli in the 1967 elections. Indira contested the Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli seat four times in a row i.e. 1967, 1971, 1977 and 1980.

Indira won thrice, out of which once the court declared her election illegal and once she had to face defeat. In the 1971 elections, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was facing a challenge from Socialist Party candidate Rajnarayan from Rae Bareli seat. When the election results came, Congress candidate Indira was declared victorious. But Rajnarayan challenged the election results in Allahabad High Court, alleging misuse of government machinery and election rigging.

While hearing this petition of Rajnarayan, the High Court declared Indira's election illegal. After this decision of Allahabad High Court, Indira Gandhi went to the Supreme Court and this incident was considered the basis for the decision of the Indira government to impose emergency in the country. In the elections held in 1977 after the Emergency, Rajnarayan was again challenging Indira Gandhi on this seat. In 1977, the victory went to Rajnarayan of Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD). Rajnarayan became the first non-Congress MP to win from Rae Bareli seat.

Non-Gandhi MP from 1980 to 1999

Indira Gandhi won from Rae Bareli in 1980 but she was also victorious from Mendak seat of united Andhra Pradesh. Indira left Rae Bareli seat and Arun Nehru reached Parliament by winning the by-election on Congress ticket. Arun was also elected MP on Congress ticket in 1984. Congress's Sheela Kaul reached Parliament in 1989 and 1991, but in 1996 and 1998, BJP's Ashok Singh won from this seat. In the 1999 elections, Congress gave ticket to Captain Satish Sharma. Captain Satish again put this seat in the hands of Congress.

Sonia Gandhi kept reaching Parliament from 2004 to 2019

In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the 24-year long distance between Rae Bareli and the Nehru-Gandhi family ended. In 2004, after handing over the legacy of Amethi to her son Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi contested elections for the first time from Rae Bareli and won by a huge margin of about 2.5 lakh votes. Sonia Gandhi reached Parliament in 2009 by winning the elections by a margin of more than 3 lakh 72 thousand votes. Sonia continued to win from Rae Bareli in 2014 and 2019 when Congress was reduced to just two and one seats in UP.