Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in Congress’s first list for 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Priyanka not

The Congress named 15 candidates on Thursday in its first list for the general election due in a few weeks, among them party president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi. The list covers 11 seats in Uttar Pradesh and four in Gujarat.

Amethi and Raebareli

Rahul Gandhi will contest Amethi and Sonia Gandhi Raebareli, family strongholds that have elected them since 2004. These were the only two of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 seats the Congress held when the BJP swept the state in 2014. The announcement ends speculation that Sonia Gandhi might retire.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who entered politics in January and was made general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, is not on the list. There had been speculation that she might contest her mother’s seat; she has campaigned for years for her mother and brother in the two constituencies.

The Congress has said it will contest all 80 seats in the state after Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party announced an alliance in January that left it out. The two parties said they would not field candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli.

Other candidates

Uttar Pradesh:

• Farrukhabad: Salman Khurshid, who lost from the seat in 2014
• Kushi Nagar: RPN Singh
• Saharanpur: Imran Masood
• Dhaurahra: Jitin Prasad
• Unnao: Annu Tandon
• Akbarpur: Rajaram Pal
• Jalaun: Brij Lal Khabri
• Faizabad: Nirmal Khatri

Gujarat:

• Anand: Bharatsinh Solanki, who won the seat in 2004 and 2009 but lost to the BJP’s Dilipbhai Patel in 2014
• Ahmedabad West: Raju Parmar
• Vadodara: Prashant Patel
• Chhota Udaipur: Ranjit Mohansinh Rathwa

What happened next

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, counted on 23 May 2019, the BJP won 303 of 543 seats and the Congress 52.

Originally published on 8 March 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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