From Feroze Gandhi To Rahul Gandhi, Rae Bareli's Tryst With Congress

From Feroze Gandhi and Indira Gandhi to their daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, the high-profile Raebareli Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh has sent several Congress heavyweights to parliament since the first national election in 1951-52.

After much suspense, the Congress announced Rahul Gandhi as its candidate from Raebareli, a seat his mother Sonia Gandhi represented for two decades.

Rahul Gandhi has been fielded against BJP's Dinesh Pratap Singh, who lost to Sonia Gandhi by over 1.67 lakh votes in the 2019 polls.

Who has contested the Rae Bareli seat till now?

Since Independence, the Congress has been the main force in Rae Bareli, winning all but three elections -1977, 1996 and 1998.

Feroz Gandhi, the husband of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and son-in-law of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, won the Rae Bareli seat in 1952 and then again in 1957. After he died in 1960, the Congress fielded RP Singh in the by-elections and retained the seat.

In the 1962 elections, Congress replaced Mr Singh with Baijnath Kureel, who ensured another victory.

Next, it was Indira Gandhi who successfully contested the 1967 and 1971 elections from Raebareli. Her controversial decision to impose the Emergency resulted in her stunning defeat in 1977. She lost the Rae Bareli seat to Janata Party's Raj Narain.

In 1980, Indira Gandhi won back Raebareli, apart from securing a win from Medak in Telangana. She kept the Medak seat, and Congress' Arun Nehru won the 1980 Rae Bareli bypoll and subsequently in 1984. Nehru was a confidant of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Sheila Kaul, another Gandhi relative and an aunt of Indira Gandhi, was the next to be elected to the Lok Sabha from the prestigious seat. She first won from Rae Bareli in 1989 and then again in the 1991 elections.

After the death of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Gandhi family retreated from politics for a while. That is when the Congress lost the seat to the BJP's Ashok Singh in 1996 and 1998.

In 1999, Rae Bareli once again voted for Congress when another friend of the Gandhis -- Satish Sharma --won from there.

The year 2004 marked the return of the Gandhi family to Rae Bareli after eight years. Sonia Gandhi, who was first elected to the Lok Sabha from Amethi in 1999, vacated it for her son Rahul Gandhi's debut in politics in the 2004 elections.

Sonia Gandhi picked Rae Bareli, a seat she won for four consecutive terms. In February 2024, when Mrs Gandhi announced her decision to not contest the next Lok Sabha elections, she wrote a letter to the Rae Bareli electorate, who supported her for two decades. "My family in Delhi is incomplete; it's you all in Rae Bareli who complete it," wrote the former Congress president. She added that her family's ties with Rae Bareli run deep and she received it as a "saubhagya (good fortune)" from her in-laws.

Now, with Rahul Gandhi moving to Rae Bareli, Congress aims to retain the only Uttar Pradesh seat the party won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Mr Gandhi, who is also contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Kerala's Wayanad, lost the Amethi seat -- another family bastion -- to BJP's Smriti Irani in the 2019 elections.

Voting for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Rae Bareli will be held in the fifth phase on May 20. The results will be declared on June 4.