About 500 km from both Raebareli and Amethi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra led a roadshow today in Fatehpur Sikri. Earlier in the day, it was clear Priyanka wouldn’t be making her much speculated poll debut. Instead, she accompanied her brother Rahul and mother Sonia to file the former’s nomination from Raebareli.

The Lok Sabha seat is a Gandhi family stronghold that has elected a Congress MP 17 times since the first general election in 1952. The decision means Rahul has chosen not to contest from Amethi, regarded as another safe seat for the party until BJP leader Smriti Irani defeated Rahul in the 2019 polls.

Raebareli had also been represented by Sonia since 2004 until she decided to enter the Rajya Sabha earlier this year. The shift – to Raebareli and away from Amethi – is a late move, however, that takes into account certain key elements. The reasoning for Raebareli is important but a clear, strategic line can be seen in Rahul choosing not to squander electoral energy and resources in Amethi.

To begin with, it’s useful to look at possible reasons to pick Raebareli. 

First, Rahul, who is also contesting as the sitting MP of Wayanad in Kerala, may have been persuaded by the merits of leading the Congress campaign in a north Indian constituency. At the same time, he could be more upbeat about a win since it’s a safer seat than Amethi now. In 2019, Sonia won with a large margin of 56 percent of the votes, beating the BJP’s Dinesh Pratap Singh who is once again in the fray. Taking on the same rival could have added to the Congress’s confidence.

The choosing of Raebareli for Rahul must also be considered with the fact that Priyanka, a nurturing presence in the constituency for her mother, again refused to bite the electoral bullet. The Congress and its UP ally, the Samajwadi Party, could not afford to fritter away the value of the Gandhis’ legacy in the constituency.

Second, the Congress top brass has been appearing too South-heavy in the constituencies they were contesting from. Party president Mallikarjun Kharge is campaigning on behalf of his son-in law in Karnataka, while general secretary KC Venugopal and key campaigner Rahul are contesting in Kerala. Should Rahul win in both Wayanad and Raebareli, he’ll face a dilemma of which seat to leave, but registering his presence in the North is significant. The decades-old ties of Raebareli with the Gandhis – except in years like 1977 when Raj Narain defeated Indira Gandhi – may also provide a plausible rationale for his decision if he opts to keep this seat.

More importantly, the question that follows is whether such factors can be seen in isolation from Rahul’s decision to skip a contest against Irani in Amethi – another Gandhi pocket borough until 2019 decisively dented such certitude. Or did such factors come into play only after the Congress top brass reconciled with letting Kishori Lal Sharma – an old loyalist and 10 Janpath confidante – lead the charge against Irani? Could reports of some anti-incumbency against the Amethi sitting MP spur Rahul to retain the old turf held from 2004 to 2019?

The Congress’s outlook on such questions, however, seems to be shaped by assessing where an unsure bet like Amethi will fit into its use of campaign resources. Without a neat fit, was it worth Rahul’s time and attention? Was it also worth risking the party’s morale and focus?

In other words, the party leadership has chosen to be strategic in picking the right battles to fight, which also entails choosing the battles to leave. In doing so, it hopes to not let its pooling of campaign resources drift in contests where key campaigns sweat too much to defend their own turf. Constituency-tied campaigners like Rahul must be optimally used for whatever electoral momentum they can provide for the party across the country. 

In this contest, the choice of a safer seat like Raebareli stands the Congress in good stead. This, however, exposes it to the BJP’s barbs, suggesting that the move away from Amethi is an admission of defeat. But the Congress will be prepared to take that form of rhetoric in its stride. The delicate decisions of opting out of something can also be a test of technical dexterity.

To draw a cricketing analogy, one of India’s batting greats, Rahul Dravid, was once nicknamed “well left, Dravid” for his fine judgement of what not to play outside his off-stump. Rahul Gandhi, who shares his first name with the great batter, will also hope that his strategy of staying away from Amethi works well enough for him, and some poll analysts may then say “well left, Rahul”.

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