New Delhi: The Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) on Thursday reserved its decision on the potential candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh but cleared the name of state unit chief Ajay Rai, who will be pitted against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi.
According to party insiders, during the CEC meeting to discuss the potential candidates in UP, the state leaders unanimously urged the panel to name Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi from Amethi and Rae Bareli respectively.
"All the UP leaders made the request in the presence of Sonia Gandhi that they want members of the Gandhi family to contest from the two high-profile seats. Now, she will decide the matter in consultation with her children," a senior All India Congress Committee (AICC) functionary said.
Sonia Gandhi, a former party chief and Chairperson of Congress Parliamentary Party, is part of the CEC. Rahul Gandhi, who is also a member of the panel that approves party candidates, was not present during the meeting, the insiders said.
Over the past few days, delegations of party workers from Amethi and Rae Bareli have met Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka to urge them to join the UP contest. Both the district committees as well as the Uttar Pradesh election committee had unanimously recommended their names for the two seats, said party insiders.
Priyanka Gandhi's name started doing the rounds soon after Sonia Gandhi moved to the Rajya Sabha and announced that she would not contest the Lok Sabha polls. As Priyanka had been managing both the parliamentary constituencies over the past decades and later became in charge of the entire UP, the locals want continuity in Gandhi family bastions.
The state leaders argue that fielding the Gandhis from the two key seats would send a strong message across Uttar Pradesh. Rahul has already been named to contest again from his present seat Wayanad in Kerala.
According to party insiders, the CEC approved names on 10 of the 17 seats that the Congress will contest in UP as part of an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP).
Besides, Ajay Rai from Varanasi, the names of Tanuj Punia from Barabanki, Akhilesh Pratap Singh from Deoria, Alok Mishra from Kanpur, Imran Masood from Saharanpur, Danish Ali from Amroha, Pradeep Jain Aditya from Jhansi and Sadal Prasad from Bansgaon were cleared by the CEC.
Danish Ali, a suspended BSP MP from Amroha, joined the Congress on March 20. Before the CEC meeting, he met party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and took his blessing for a new innings in the grand old party.
Rai, who was recently appointed as UP Congress chief at the instance of Priyanka Gandhi, had contested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls also.
According to party insiders, former senior Congress leader from Varanasi Rajesh Mishra was upset over not getting a ticket and therefore joined the BJP. Similarly, in Kanpur AICC functionary Ajay Kapoor joined the BJP as he lost the race to Alok Mishra.
The candidate in Deoria, Akhilesh Pratap Singh is an old-timer and former MLA from the area besides being a national spokesperson. The same goes for Jhansi nominee Pradeep Jain Aditya, a former junior minister in the previous UPA government.
