Priyanka Gandhi may contest from Raebareli in 2024 Lok Sabha elections: Report

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi may make her electoral debut from Raebareli in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday. Priyanka's mother and former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Raebareli. However, this time, she is likely to enter the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan.   

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The report said that Sonia's decision to contest from Rajasthan and not from the vacancies available in the southern states of Telangana or Karnataka is aimed at sending a signal that the Gandhi family is not abandoning the Hindi heartland - which has 225 Lok Sabha seats in 10 states. 

Till 2019, the Gandhi family had two bastions - Amethi and Raebareli. However, in the last elections, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi was defeated by BJP's Smriti Irani. Rahul Gandhi held the Amethi seat from 2004 to 2019. The Congress has also held the Raebareli seat since 1999 and Sonia Gandhi has been representing this seat since 2004.   

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In 2019, Rahul Gandhi contested from two seats - Amethi in Uttar Prades and Wayanad in Kerala. Gandhi lost Amethi to Smriti Irani by over 50,000 votes but won Wayanad by over 4 lakh votes. 

Ahead of the 2019 elections, Priyanka Gandhi formally entered politics and was appointed as the AICC General Secretary in charge of the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh and then as the General Secretary in charge of the entire Uttar Pradesh.