The Congress on Saturday released its first list of 194 candidates covering 20 States and Union Territories for the lok Sabha elections with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi, UID chief Nandan Nilekani, cricketer Mohd Kaif, Bhojpuri filmstar Ravi Kishen and President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijeet Mukherjee figuring in it. Over 60 sitting MPs are being repeated. The party however refrained from announcing any candidate from the bifurcated State of Andhra Pradesh.
The Congress has announced a whopping 50 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, which accounts for 80 lok Sabha seats. While Sonia and Rahul will contest from their strongholds Rae Bareily and Amethi, Ravi Kishen will contest from Jaunpur and Mohd Kaif from Phulpur, once represented by late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Aadhaar chief Nilekani is being fielded from Bangalore South. He will be pitted against BJP’s sitting MP Ananth Kumar, whose candidature was announced on Saturday. Abhijit Mukherjee will re-contest from Jangipur from West Bengal while former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece Karuna Shukla, who recently joined the Congress after quitting BJP, will fight from Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh.
The Congress is also fielding two other actors Aparajita Mohanty and Bijay Mohanty from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. Retired Justice Hanumanthappa, who was an MP from Chitradurga has now been given the ticket to contest from Bellary. Party sources said 35 per cent of the candidates are under the age of 50, 15 per cent of them are women and there are many young and new faces.
Since Narendra Modi has not announced his constituency, Congress is yet to take a call on whom to field against him, sources said. Candidates for Delhi’s seven Parliamentary constituencies held by Congress are also yet to be decided. With Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP upsetting all political calculations, the Congress is expected to take some time before deciding on the names in the Capital. Union Ministers Salman Khurshid, Beni Prasad Verma, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Jitin Prasad and R P N Singh have been re-nominated from their respective seats. In Madhya Pradesh, Union Ministers Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, besides Meenakshi Natarajan have been named from Chhindwara, Guna and Mandasaur respectively.
The party has renominated several of its members from Maharashtra including Union Ministers like Sushilkumar Shinde and all the sitting MPs from Mumbai including Milind Deora, Gurudas Kamat, Priya Dutt and Sanjay Nirupam. Vilas Muttemwar is the candidate from Nagpur where former BJP president Nitin Gadkari is likely to be the party’s candidate.
The party has also decided on nominees for 10 of the 12 lok Sabha seats it is contesting in Bihar in alliance with the RJD. In Bihar, candidates whose names were finalized include former MP Ranjeet Ranjan for Supaul, Nikhil Kumar for Aurangabad, former ClP leader Ashok Ram for Samastipur, Akhilesh Singh for Muzaffarpur, Raj Kumar Rajan in Patna Sahib, Amarnath Tiwari from Purnea and Pratima Devi from Hajipur. Besides, sitting MPs Meira Kumar and Asrarul Haque have been repeated on their Sasaram and Kishanganj seats. A decision on candidates for Nalanda and Valmiki Nagar seats is however pending.
Jharkhand PCC Sukhdeo Bhagat, who was hoping for a lS ticket from lohardaga, has been left out from the list. Instead former Union Minister Rameshwar Oraon will try his luck from Bhagat’s hometown lohardaga. Oraon had earlier won from the seat but lost last time around. Candidates for Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Bokaro in Jharkhand have not been finalized. With Bhagat not being fielded, the party is expected to take a call on whether to field newly-appointed PCC chiefs like Sachin Pilot, Arun Yadav, Ashok Tanwar, all sitting MPs.
AICC sources said that former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is also likely to get the ticket. Candidates for seven seats in Haryana were finalized: Navin Jindal from Kurukshetra, Deepender Singh Hooda from Rohtak and Avtar Singh Bhadana from Faridabad. Sources said other probables include Jaya Prada from Moradabad replacing former Indian captain and sitting MP Azharuddin, who is likely to be fielded from Kolkata. The party also announced candidates for six Assembly seats in West Bengal which would have by-elections. The Central Election Committee of the party, headed by Sonia Gandhi, finalised the list which also includes several sitting members including Union Ministers.
Meanwhile Congress and its ally NCP in Maharashtra have decided to swap the Raigad and Hingoli lok Sabha seats. While Congress would be giving up Raigad, which it has failed to wrest away from Shiv Sena in the last three elections, NCP would be relinquishing Hingoli. Youth Congress president Rajiv Satav is expected to stand from Hingoli while state Water Resources Minister Sunil Tatkare is likely to contest from Raigad.
NCP has also decided to leave the Hatkanangale seat for Congress, where current MP Raju Shetti of Swabhimani Shetkari Sangthana has now allied with the Shiv Sena and BJP. Congress will be fielding candidates in 27 constituencies in Maharashtra while NCP will be contesting 21 seats.