Rae Bareli: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi filed her nomination for the Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli today and will try to retain the seat for the fifth time. She was accompanied by her son and Congress president Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka.
Rae Bareli goes to polls 6 May and will see a straight contest between Sonia Gandhi and Dinesh Pratap Singh, who left Congress and joined BJP recently.
It could be recalled that there was speculation that Sonia would quit active politics. But rumours were put to rest as Congress Central Election Committee announced last month that Sonia would contest polls this time too.
Before filing nominations, the Gandhi family – Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka organised a ‘havan’ (homam) at the Congress’s central office earlier today. The streets were filled with Congress supporters who accompanied the Congress caravan till the Election Commission office at Rae Bareli.
Sonia had won the Rae Bareli seat in 2004, 2006 (by-polls), 2009 and 2014. In 2014, there were 15.94 lakh voters in the constituency and the poll percentage was 51.73 per cent, in which Sonia had got 5,26,434 votes. Since 1957, the Congress has won the seat 19 times, including three by-elections, and lost the seat only three times – 1977, 1996 and 1998.