Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party president Sonia Gandhi will be filing her nomination for the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan

Newdelhi:13/2/24:Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party and former party president Sonia Gandhi will be filing her nomination for the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan on Wednesday. Ms. Gandhi, the MP from Rae Bareli, is currently serving her fifth term in Lok Sabha, and this will be her first stint in the Upper House. Her decision to opt out of Lok Sabha race has triggered speculation that her daughter and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could finally make her electoral debut from Rae Bareli.

The 72-year-old Ms. Gandhi has been battling illness for a long time and has taken a step back from many party engagements, including recent election campaigns. Sources said her son Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will accompany her when she files her nomination in Jaipur.

The party took a strategic call to field Ms. Gandhi from Rajasthan instead of Telangana or Karnataka to ensure that it does not limit itself to the southern boundaries. In the 2019 General Election, Mr. Gandhi, then the party president, had contested from Amethi, where he had represented thrice, and also the Wayanad Lok Sabha election in Kerala. He lost Amethi to senior BJP leader Smriti Irani, which accelerated the party’s recession in the Hindi heartland. For two consecutive General Elections, the party failed to win a single seat in Rajasthan. It also had dismal performances in other Hindi heartland States of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh.

“Our president Mallikarjun Kharge comes from Karnataka, and our former president Rahul Gandhi is an MP from Wayanad. We can’t have another former president to represent a southern State, as that would mean we are entirely giving up on the electoral battle in the north,” a senior Congress leader explained.