New Delhi: India's 'first' political family the Gandhis have four members in the Parliament. All four are Lok Sabha members. All of them represent Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.
But none of them have their votes in their respective Lok Sabha seats. All are registered voters in New Delhi and they cast their vote at VVIP polling stations in Lutyen's Delhi.
Two Gandhis - the Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son, Vice President of the party Rahul Gandhi are once again contesting from Rae Bareli and Amethi respectively. The other half of the Nehru-Gandhi family Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi are contesting from Pilibhit and Sultanpur on the BJP ticket.
Among the four Gandhis, Maneka Gandhi is the senior most MP. She has been in the Parliament since 1989 and a six-time MP. But, her vote is in New Delhi, not in Pilibhit.
Her son Varun Gandhi, who made his debut in 2009 from Pilibhit (Maneka Gandhi vacated her seat for son and shifted to another seat) is also a registered voter in New Delhi.
Sonia Gandhi has been in the Lok Sabha since 1999. She first won from Amethi and Bellary in 1999 and retained family bastion of Amethi, which sent her husband and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to the Parliament four times and his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi to the Parliament once.
She vacated Amethi for son Rahul Gandhi in 2004 and shifted Rae Bareli, which was once represented by her mother-in-law and the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi is a registered voter at Nirman Bhawan a few hundred meters from 10, Janpath, her official residence in New Delhi. Maneka Gandhi is also a registered voter in the same polling booth.
Rahul Gandhi has been representing Amethi since 2004. But, he is a registered voter in New Delhi. His younger sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra votes at Lodhi Estate, where she lives with her family.
There is no such rule that a Lok Sabha candidate should be a registered voter in his or her seat. The only prerequisite to contest is he or she has to be a registered voter in India.
But, some argue that a Lok Sabha member who represents the voters of a seat has to be a registered voter in his or her seat. BJP patriarch L K Advani who is a resident of Delhi is a registered voter in Gandhinagar in Gujarat. He also represents Gandhinagar in the Lok Sabha.
The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, another Delhiite is a registered voter of Guwahati in Assam. He represents Assam in the Rajya Sabha.
Comments
0 comment