At last, the Gandhi family didn’t dare to contest from Amethi. The Gandhi family didn’t have enough courage to contest against Smriti Irani. The Congress party’s first family put a new player with no prior experience in contesting elections, and he will be the scapegoat.
After filing a nomination from Rae Bareli, the Gandhi family cannot campaign for any other candidate. They must devote their total energy and time to campaigning in Rae Bareli. The Gandhi family’s last-minute decision to contest Rae Bareli shows their lack of confidence in contesting the seat. Amethi’s seat was also a bone of contention when choosing whom to contest from the seat. If Kishori Lal Sharma were the natural choice of the Congress party, then his candidature should have been announced earlier. But the last-minute announcement shows that K L Sharma is not the Congress party’s first choice. The plight of the Congress party can be gauged from the fact that in the 1984 Lok Sabha election, the party lost only one seat, while in 2019, the party won only one seat of Rae Bareli in UP.
During the entire electioneering, the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi must have clarified why he did not contest from Amethi but instead from Rae Bareli. The Gandhi family has surrendered. The decision to field K L Sharma cleared the Amethi seat. It becomes clear that there is no chance of the Gandhi family contesting for the seat in the future.
The Congress party’s decision to field Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli has some other prospects, too. The Congress party is blackmailed by the Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is blackmailing the Congress party for supporting Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad. Two of the seven ACs of the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat are in the grip of IUML, and 2019, the IUML took the Ramanathapuram Lok Sabha seat in Kerala out of turn. The IUML has no history of contesting the seat in the near past. In the 2026 Assembly election in Kerala, the IUML was all set to demand the Chief Minister post within the UDF(United Democratic Front). Now, the Congress party wants to come out from the clutches of the IUML to eliminate the undue demand of the IUML. It is also speculated that the Congress party skipped from Ayodhya on January 22, Pran Pratishtha, to keep IUML in good humour. So, on the political front, Wayanad’s Lok Sabha seat was costly for the Congress party.
The chances of Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli are not fair. The Congress party vote share has reduced drastically in previous elections. If we start from the 2006 by-poll in Rae Bareli, then the margin of victory of Sonia Gandhi has decreased election after election. In the 2006 Rae Bareli by-poll, the victory margin was 417888, reduced to 167178 votes in 2019. Besides the recent joining of Samajwadi Party MLA of Unchahar, Mr Manoj Pandey’s joining the BJP is a big shot in the arms of the BJP. The Congress party will have to endure much pain in the contest against the BJP. Besides, in the 2022 Assembly election in UP, the Congress party vote share came down to 140706 votes only. The Congress party saved its deposit on only two of the five ACs within the seat. The Congress party’s vote share in the Assembly election for these five seats was a meagre 13.15 per cent. Only the alliance with the Samajwadi Party strengthens the Congress party to contest the seat. The Congress party is overlooking the fact that the Samajwadi Party is no longer a strong force and is losing its relevance rapidly. After the demise of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party is only a shadow of its past.
The Congress pary’s last-minute declaration of candidates and the Gandhi family’s decision to stay away from Amethi have had a profound impact on the morale of its cadres. This sudden shift in strategy has left the INDI Alliance in Uttar Pradesh grappling with the need to explain the reasons behind these decisions. Additionally, the late start of the party’s campaigning in Amethi and Rae Bareli poses a further challenge for the party to overcome.
