Priyanka Gandhi to make poll debut as Rahul to leave Wayanad for Rae Bareli

Rahul Gandhi has retained the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, while the vacated Wayanad seat will be taken up by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, party president Mallikarjun Kharge announced on Monday evening.

Kharge attributed the party's decision to have Rahul retain Rae Bareli to the Nehru-Gandhi family’s “emotional” and “generational” ties with that seat. However, the decision primarily concerns Congress' improved performance in UP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with an eye on the 2027 Assembly polls in the state and the larger objective of recovering its lost ground in the Hindi heartland.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won six seats in UP of the 17 it contested in alliance with the Samajwadi Party, and improved its vote share to 9.46 per cent. 
 

But the party's Kerala unit, which has lost two successive Assembly polls to the Left Democratic Front, and hopeful of winning the 2026 Assembly polls, insisted that a 'Gandhi' should represent Wayanad if Rahul were to vacate it. Rahul had first contested and won from Wayanad in 2019, which ensured that he found a seat in the Lok Sabha as he lost from Amethi, a seat he had represented since 2004. On Monday evening, Rahul acknowledged Wayanad's contribution to his political career. "The people of Wayanad gave me support and energy to fight at a very difficult time. I will never forget that," he said. "I will continue to visit Wayanad, and the promises we made to Wayanad will be fulfilled," Rahul said. He said both Rae Bareli and Wayanad “will get two MPs”.
 

"I won't let the people of Wayanad feel Rahul's absence," Priyanka, who had entered active politics in 2019 but will be making her electoral debut now, said. In the 2024 polls, she had stationed herself in Amethi to ensure the win of family loyalist KL Sharma against BJP's Irani. Kharge acknowledged Priyanka's contribution to the party's Amethi and Rae Bareli wins.
 

In the LS polls, Rahul won from Rae Bareli by 390,030 votes and from Wayanad by 364,422 votes. According to the rules, an MP elected from two seats has to vacate one within 14 days of the announcement of results, which is June 18.
 

By preferring the UP seat over the one he won in a state outside , Rahul has joined a list that comprises Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. At different junctures in their electoral outings, they contested two Lok Sabha seats in two states, one of which was UP. When confronted with the option of quitting one, they made the same choice Rahul made on Monday: opting to retain the seat they had won in UP.
 

In 1991, Vajpayee quit Gandhinagar to retain Lucknow. In 1999, Sonia resigned from Bellary to keep Amethi. In 2014, Modi vacated the Vadodara seat to retain Varanasi. However, Indira Gandhi, in 1980, resigned from Rae Bareli to retain Andhra Pradesh's (now in Telangana) Medak.
 

Kharge announced the party's decision after a meeting at his residence, which Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Rahul, and party general secretaries K C Venugopal and Priyanka attended. Sources said the meeting also discussed whether Rahul Gandhi would take up the post of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha.
 

The Congress Working Committee, the party's highest decision-making body, had earlier this month urged Rahul to take up the position as "he is the best person" for the post. However, another view in the party is that  Rahul should remain the Congress' lead campaigner rather than get pinned down by performing the duties of the leader of the Opposition.
 

In the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had sent Sonia Gandhi to the Rajya Sabha. She had won from Rae Bareli in all LS polls from 2004 to 2019, including in a bypoll in 2006.
 

Feroze Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi have represented Rae Bareli on several occasions from 1951-52 to 2019.