AMN / NEW DELHI

The Congress party Thursday released the first list of 15 candidates for Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Ending the suspense over whether UPA chairperson will continue to remain in active politics, the Congress today announced her as the candidate for Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli. Congress President Rahul Gandhi will contest from his parliamentary constituency Amethi, the release said.

Interestingly, the first list of candidates did not contain Priyanka Gandhi’s name, who made her political debut recently and was appointed as the AICC General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh in January this year, ahead of the general elections. Notably, Rae Bareli and Amethi are the only constituencies that Congress had won in the state in the last Lok Sabha elections.

There had been a number of reports that Sonia would retire from active politics due to to her ill-health over the last few years. Her public appearances have reduced drastically over the years. Her last election rally was in Hyderabad before the assembly election in Telangana in December.

She has held the Rae Bareli seat without interruption since 2004, and which, alongside Amethi, has traditionally been the Gandhi family bastions.

The forthcoming Lok Sabha election has been billed as the biggest test for Rahul Gandhi, whose political fortunes have been on an upswing as was seen in the assembly elections to five states in December last year. The Congress wrested three Hindi heartland states from the BJP in the elections.

The Congress Working Committee has in all, announced 15 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections – 11 from Uttar Pradesh and four from Gujarat. The list was released after the CWC met for an hour and a half.