Congress leaders and workers in the Amethi parliamentary constituency are quite disappointed over the party’s failure to declare a candidate from the seat, traditionally represented by the Nehru-Gandhi family, in the list announced on Saturday.
Doubts still prevail in the party regarding the selection of a candidate from Amethi.
Congress leaders and workers are persistent in their demand that either Rahul Gandhi or Priyanka Gandhi contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election from Amethi.
So far, the Congress has released four lists of candidates for the coming polls. Even in the fourth list released by the party on Saturday, the Congress did not declare its candidate from the Amethi seat, which is considered an important seat in UP and a party stronghold.
In its first list, the Congress declared Rahul Gandhi as its candidate from the Wayanad seat in Kerala. Rahul represented the Amethi seat in the Lok Sabha for three successive terms in 2004, 2009, and 2014.
In 2019, Rahul Gandhi contested elections from both the Wayanad and the Amethi seats for the first time. However, he lost in Amethi but secured the Wayanad seat.
This year, Congress workers are demanding Rahul and Priyanka to contest elections from the Amethi seat. People have also joined their demand through posters, banners, and social media, asking them to contest elections from Amethi.
Party sources here on Sunday said that recently many leaders, including Congress District President Pradeep Singhal, former MLC Deepak Singh, Dharmendra Shukla, Shubham Singh, and Sanjay Pathak visited Delhi and demanded that either Rahul or Priyanka should contest the elections from Amethi.
Many big leaders, including the state unit president of the Congress, claim that Rahul Gandhi will contest the election from Amethi. However, no official statement has been made either by Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi or Priyanka Gandhi in this regard.
After the release of the fourth list, Congress leaders, workers and supporters openly expressed their disappointment. However, they hope the Gandhi family will contest the Amethi and Rae Bareli seats in the coming polls.