India’s age-old party Congress on Friday named former party chief Rahul Gandhi as its candidate for the general polls from Rae Bareli seat in Uttar Pradesh.
It was expected that Rahul Gandhi would be fighting from Amethi, a seat where he contested for several years before being defeated in 2019 general polls by BJP leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani.
In its latest candidate list, Congress fielded Kishori Lal Sharma from Amethi.
Both the seats remained Congress bastions for years.
Elections in the Rae Bareli and Amethi seats will be held on May 20 in the fifth phase of the polls.
Sharma will face Irani in the politically crucial Amethi seat.
Rahul Gandhi would face BJP leader Dinesh Pratap Singh in Rae Bareli.
Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had defeated him in 2019.
Rahul Gandhi was elected to Lok Sabha last year when he won the Wayanad seat in Kerala, despite losing his hold on Amethi.
India has so far voted in the first two phases of the Lok Sabha polls.
The polls assume significance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking forward to returning to power for the record third term which is rare in Indian politics.
If elected to power, Modi will be the first non-Congress PM to lead the country for three consecutive terms.
In 2014, Modi was elected to power for the first term after he led his Bharatiya Janata Party to a massive victory to end the Congress-led UPA rule of ten years.