United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Friday filed her nomination as the Congress party’s candidate for the Lok Sabha elections in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. Gandhi performed a puja along with her son Congress President Rahul Gandhi, and daughter, party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra before filing her papers.
Sonia Gandhi has served as the Rae Bareli MP since 2004.
When asked if Prime Minister Narendra Modi was invincible, Gandhi said: “Not at all, not at all. Don’t forget 2004. In 2004 [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee ji was also invincible, but we won.”
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, who accompanied Sonia Gandhi to Rae Bareli, said election results will show that Modi is not invincible. “There have been many, many people in Indian history that had the arrogance to believe that they are invincible, that they are bigger than the people of India,” he said. “But they don’t realise nobody is bigger than the people.”
The BJP has fielded Dinesh Pratap Singh from the seat. Singh recently switched to the BJP from Congress. The grand alliance of the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal has not fielded any candidate from Rae Bareli so as to avoid division of votes.
Priyanka Gandhi’s children Raihan and Miraya were also present.
Voting for the first phase of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections began on Thursday. Over 1.5 crore voters are registered across the eight constituencies of Uttar Pradesh that will vote on Thursday. The state’s 80 seats will vote in seven phases. Rae Bareli will go to polls on May 6.
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