New Delhi/IBNS: Ending all speculations, Congress on Friday fielded its top leader Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli and Kishori Lal Sharma from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections.

Rahul will fight from Rae Bareli, a Congress bastion which saw his mother Sonia Gandhi win even the last time in 2019.

Sonia Gandhi, a Congress veteran, has opted out of the Lok Sabha contest by moving to the Rajya Sabha.

Rahul, the former Congress president, was defeated by Union Minister Smriti Irani in Amethi in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

Irani won the seat in 2019 five years after she was defeated by Rahul, who was the Congress vice president then.

With Rahul, who is also contesting from Kerala's Wayanad like previous time, moving out of Amethi, Congress fielded Kishori Lal Sharma to take on Irani, a fiery BJP leader.

Earlier, speculations were rife that Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her husband, businessman Robert Vadra, will be fielded from Rae Bareli and Amethi respectively.

Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats, has been ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2017.

In the last consecutive general elections, the BJP had swept the polls in Uttar Pradesh, the north Indian state.

Rae Bareli and Amethi go to polls on May 20 and the last date for filing nomination is May 3.