Rahul Gandhi led the first list of Congress candidates for Lok Sabha elections, as the party declared that it is going into the parliamentary contest to seriously dent the BJP and is willing to go out of its way to court allies while urging the latter to reciprocate.
Rahul will contest from his present constituency of Wayanad in Kerala. The list of 39 candidates includes six in Chhattisgarh, seven from Karnataka, 16 from Kerala, four from Telangana.
Congress did not answer queries if Rahul Gandhi will contest from his old seat of Amethi too. AICC office-bearers K C Venugopal and Ajay Maken released the list at a press conference, specifying that of the 39 candidates, 15 belong to the general category while 24 are from SC/ST/OBC and minorities. While 12 candidates are below 50 years, eight are between 50-60 years and 12 are between 60-70 years.
The party declared that it is time to remove the “fascist government.” Venugopal said Congress’ guarantees announced by president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi -“yuva nyay” focusing on “promised first job” to all youth through right to apprenticeship and filling of 30,00,000 government vacancies, “hissedari nyay” promising inclusive development through caste census, “kisan nyay” through law on MSP – will be the key planks in the elections.
Given its dim show in the Hindi belt in the recent assembly polls swept by the BJP, Congress has decided to pitchfork its senior leaders into the parliamentary battle to shore up its prospects in what will be a challenging election. Former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, who was voted out of power weeks ago, will contest from Rajnandgaon while his senior minister Tamradhwaj Sahu (74) has been fielded from Mahasamund. Also, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, will contest the LS polls again after a break in 2019, from his old constituency of Alappuzha in Kerala. These are indications that veterans may also be asked to contest in other states like Rajasthan, MP, Maharashtra.
In Karnataka, Geetha Sivarajkumar, daughter of late Karnataka CM S Bangarappa, daughter-in-law of late thespian Rajkumar and wife of Kannada star Shivarajkumar, will contest from Shimoga, the stronghold of Yeddyurappa family of the BJP. Geetha’s brother Madhu is a senior minister in the Siddaramaiah government. D K Suresh, brother of deputy CM D K Shivakumar and the lone Congress winner in 2019, has been fielded again from Bengaluru rural. Former MP Hamdullah Sayeed, son of late Congress leader and Union minister P M Sayeed, will try his luck once more from Lakshadweep, after losing in the last elections.
Congress announced candidates for the 16 seats that it will contest out of 20 as part of the UDF bloc in Kerala.
List for Assam, MP, Gujarat and Rajasthan
The Congress on Tuesday released its second list of 43 candidates for Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam.
Gaurav Gogoi, son of former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, will be contesting from Jorhat.
Nakul Nath, son of Kamal Nath, will contest from Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara. Vaibhav Gehlot, son of former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, has been fielded from Jalore, Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot's name did not feature in the second list as was reported earlier. Rahul Kaswan, who was denied a ticket by the BJP, has been fielded by Congress from Churu, Rajasthan.