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Rae Bareli Parliamentary Constituency
Known as the pocket borough of the Gandhi family, Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat has mostly been with the Congress party ever since it came into existence in 1952 as it didn't win the seat only on three occasions out of twenty. Notably, the constituency has been represented by famous personalities of Indian politics like Indira Gandhi, Feroze Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and others. Since 2004, Sonia Gandhi has been the Rae Bareli MP but in early 2024, she tendered her resignation and decided to take the Rajya Sabha route from Rajasthan.
In 2019, Sonia Gandhi won the polls by a margin of over 1.6 lakh votes but the political analysts opine that the victory margin has considerably reduced over the past two decades, especially in the 2006 byelection when the former Congress President won by a margin of over 4 lakh votes. Even in the 2022 UP Assembly election, Congress didn't manage to win a single constituency that lies in the area of Rae Bareli Parliamentary seat. In fact, it was the Samajwadi Party that won four out of the five Assembly seats which came under the Rae Bareli LS seat.
Incidentally, it was the 1971 Rae Bareli LS polls in which the Allahabad High Court found the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices and barred her from holding any office for a period of six years. However, Indira escaped the verdict as she imposed Emergency in the country. Later, in 1977 LS polls, Indira lost from the Rae Bareli seat marking the only occasion of a Gandhi family member getting defeated from here.
Notably, the Rae Bareli LS seat has a heavy presence of Dalits and Rajputs. With Sonia out of the picture, it will be interesting to see whether the Congress will field Rahul or Priyanka from this family citadel in the 2024 LS polls.
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