In Cong first list, Sonia to contest from Rae Bareli, Rahul from Amethi

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday released list of 11 candidates, including Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi in its first list for upcoming 2019 General Elections.

The list names 11 candidates in Uttar Pradesh and four in Gujarat.
Rahul and his mother Sonia will contest from Amethi and Raebareli, where Gandhi family has a stronghold.

During the 2014 general elections, Amethi and Raebareli were the only seats the Congress had retained in the 80-seat Uttar Pradesh when they were decimated by the BJP.

However, this list does not include Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who has joined politics in January and was made party general secretary in charge of eastern UP.

Thursday’s announcement ended the speculation about Sonia Gandhi retiring.

The Congress announced that it will contest on all 80 seats in UP after SP and BSP announced grand alliance without the party. The BSP-SP alliance made one concession for the Congress; they said they would not field candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli.

Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid is also on the list, who will contest from Farrukhabad.

The other leaders on the list for UP are RPN Singh from Kushi Nagar, Imran Masood from Saharanpur, Jitin Prasad from Dhaurahra, Annu Tandon from Unnao, Rajaram Pal from Akbarpur, Brij Lal Khabri from Jalaun and Nirmal Khatri from Faizabad.

In Gujarat, senior Congress leader Bharatsinh Solanki will contest from Anand. He had won the Lok Sabha elections from the seat in 2004 and 2009. But he lost to Dilipbhai Patel of the BJP in 2014. Raju Parmar will contest the elections from Ahmedabad West seat, Prashant Patel will contest from Vadodara, and Ranjit Mohansinh Rathwa will contest from Chhota Udaipur seat.