Rahul Gandhi to take oath as MP this morning February 19, 2016, 12:11 Updated: February 19, 2016, 12:11 Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will take oath as a member of parliament from the prestigious family seat of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh this morning. Gandhi will be entering the parliament for the sixth time. He will formally take oath at 11:30am (10:30pm IST). Gandhi will be taking the oath in the company of other members of parliament-elect and the Speaker. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who completed his first year in power on Thursday, is also expected to take oath as the leader of the ruling party at the parliament premises tomorrow. The cabinet ministerial portfolios will be distributed by the prime minister tomorrow. Gandhi, who was elected as a Lok Sabha MP from Amethi in 2009, was renominated to contest the elections from the seat this time as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and the local unit wanted him to continue as their candidate for the coming Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi had not contested this year’s elections from Amethi and was seeking a nomination for a second seat. But the party made it clear that he would not be given another seat and his efforts to get a nomination from Raebareli, also ruled by the Gandhi family, failed. Gandhi said the party had asked him to stay in Amethi for the next five years and he would do so. He said he is very happy to continue in the party and work to develop Amethi as a strong base to take on communal forces, adding he would also focus on bringing women into politics. Gandhi’s grandmother Indira Gandhi had once won from Amethi, beating her nearest rival by a record margin of 3.36 lakh votes. But she had never contested an election from the constituency since 1985 when she was forced to step down for the Bofors scam. In Amethi, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra will contest from a seat of his own. On Saturday, Gandhi will meet his mother, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and a number of other senior leaders at their homes in Delhi and discuss the campaign in the constituency with them. The Congress is banking on Vadra to make inroads into the Congress stronghold of Amethi. Vadra has already been asked to prepare for a Lok Sabha poll campaign and could be asked to participate in the campaign at any time. The Congress has decided that Amethi is not the place for Gandhi. The focus of the campaign is the development of the area and winning over the support of Muslims, who have become disenchanted with the political family and in whom communal violence was reported to have occurred in 2012. The constituency has two significant Muslim and Dalit population clusters. About 70 per cent of the population is considered poor and has suffered due to lack of employment opportunities and a large number of land-grabbers owing to an acute land crunch. The Amethi seat was won by Congress candidate and former MP Rae Bareli in 2009 by an edge of 1.05 lakh votes. The Amethi seat was last held by the Samajwadi Party in 1996 when Amar Singh was the sitting MP. Anjali Dutt is a Delhi-based journalist and writer on domestic politics. Catch the biggest newsmakers and the biggest newsbreaks on CNN-News18, the only news destination. Keep watching CNN-News18 at just 50 paise per month. Contact your cable/DTH operator now!