Keeping up with UP: Will Raebareli elect future PM or will there be 1977 repeat?
Raebareli lost its primacy as the constituency of top Congress leaders when the party was voted out of power in Uttar Pradesh in 1989
On September 11, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, and Uttar Pradesh minister Dinesh Pratap Singh had a heated exchange at a development coordination and monitoring panel meeting in the Congress leader’s constituency of Raebareli in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Uttar Pradesh. The two argued over the protocol and the issues raised at the meeting. A day earlier, Singh protested the abusive comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother during a Congress rally in poll-bound Bihar by staging a sit-in in front of Gandhi’s cavalcade.
The situation boiled over amid Gandhi’s aggressive targeting of the BJP over issues such as alleged electoral roll manipulation. Development works in Raebareli, the Gandhi family pocket borough, which is already starved of development, are expected to be the casualty of the rising political tensions.
Raebareli lost its primacy as the constituency of top Congress leaders when the party was voted out of power in the Uttar Pradesh in 1989. For non-Congress governments, Raebareli has not been the priority, even as many say the party could have done more for the area over its decades-long rule at the Centre.
Veteran leader Sonia Gandhi represented Raebareli when she was the chairperson of the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) from 2004 to 2014. She retained the seat in 2014 and 2019 before vacating it in 2024 for her son, Rahul Gandhi.
Raebareli’s importance rose when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi represented it in the Lok Sabha (between 1967 and 1980). Indira Gandhi held development meetings every three months in Raebareli. Union and state Cabinet ministers would attend them.
In the 1970s, the railway ministry ensured, within a day, that the newly introduced Kashi Vishwanath Express stopped at Raebareli after locals complained that it did not halt there at one of Indira Gandhi’s meetings in her constituency.
The assistance under the Indira Awas Yojna housing scheme was raised from ₹25,000 to ₹35,000 in 2008 after the demand for the raise was first made in Raebareli when Sonia Gandhi was the UPA chairperson.
The late Congress leader Akhilesh Singh’s rebellion was a major setback to Congress in Raebareli. Akhilesh Singh, who won the Raebareli Sadar assembly constituency in 1993, 1996, and 2002, did not even allow the Congress flags in his ancestral village after his expulsion from the party in 2006. Singh won the 2007 poll as an Independent and 2012 on the Peace Party’s ticket. His daughter, Aditi Singh, defected to the BJP after winning the 2017 election on a Congress ticket.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra ensured Congress flags flew everywhere in her mother’s constituency. She also accompanied the Congress teams that came from neighbouring states to the area during campaigning.
Akhilesh Singh was not the only leader to defect from the Congress in Raebareli. Dinesh Pratap Singh, who organised demonstrations against Rahul Gandhi on September 10, is also a former Congress leader.
Journalist Gaurav Awasthi linked the protests against Rahul Gandhi to one-upmanship that started in the BJP in Raebareli before the 2024 polls. He said three leaders were vying for the prime position there. Aditi Singh, a BJP assembly member from Raebareli, opposed the candidature of Dinesh Pratap Singh, who lost to Rahul Gandhi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls by a margin of 390,300 votes.
The BJP, which hopes to wrest the Gandhi family pocket borough, inducted prominent Brahmin leader Manoj Pandey from the Samajwadi Party ahead of the 2024 polls. Union home minister Amit Shah even visited his residence, but Pandey did not get the Lok Sabha ticket and has been lying low.
The BJP has identified Raebareli, Amethi, Azamgarh, Kannauj, and Mainpuri among the opposition strongholds it wants to focus on. Senior non-Congress leaders would not even campaign in Raebareli until Sonia Gandhi was around. This is no longer the case, particularly for the BJP. Dinesh Pratap Singh is seen to have upped the ante against this backdrop and to continue to be the BJP’s preferred leader in Raebareli, as Rahul Gandhi has emerged as a national leader in his own right.
Forty-eight years ago, Indira Gandhi lost Raebareli to socialist leader Raj Narain in 1977. Will the constituency elect a future Prime Minister in 2029, or will there be a repeat of 1977? Only time will tell.
One Subscription.
Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines
to 100 year archives.
HT App & Website
