Kapil, Maken, Sandeep, Agarwal, Tirath get tickets; lalu’s damaad, Kalmadi denied seats
The drubbing in the national Capital in the recent Assembly elections notwithstanding, the Congress on Tuesday reposed faith in five of its sitting MPs by re-nominating them to contest the forthcoming lok Sabha polls in Delhi. It, however, did not clear the names for the other two seats — South and West Delhi — currently represented by Ramesh Kumar (brother of Congress heavyweight Sajjan Kumar) and Mahabal Mishra, respectively.
While the Congress also did not name its candidate to take on BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Varanasi, it shifted cricketer-turned-politician Mohammad Azharuddin to Tonk-Sawai Madhopur and denied CWG scam-tainted Suresh Kalmadi a renomination from Pune. Vishwajeet Kadam, State Youth Congress chief and son of Minister Patangrao Kadam, will contest from Pune. The party has also not named its candidate for Nanded, where Adarsh scam-tainted former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan is an aspirant.
The sitting MPs of Delhi, Union Ministers Kapil Sibal and Krishna Tirath will be in the poll fray from their existing seats of Chandni Chowk and North-West Delhi, former Union Minister Ajay Maken and former Delhi Congress chief JP Agarwal, both of whom made it through the primaries round recently, were officially announced as the party’s candidate from New Delhi and North-East Delhi. While Sandeep Dikshit has again been repeated, the party decided to deliberate more on fielding the candidates for West and South Delhi that are likely to be represented by new faces, which includes a Bollywood star whom the party reportedly approached on Tuesday.
In its third list of candidates for 58 parliamentary lok Sabha seats, the Congress did not heed RJD chief lalu Prasad’s desperate bid to ensure a ticket for his son-in-law Chiranjeev Rao from Gurgaon. Instead, it nominated its Badshahpur MlA Rao Dharampal to take on its renegade and sitting MP Rao Inderjeet, who switched allegiance to the BJP recently. Badshahpur Assembly constituency falls under Gurgaon parliamentary seat. The total candidates declared by the Congress so far thus stand at 318.
The party also decided to withhold the candidature for ludhiana seat currently represented by Union Minister Manish Tewari, who surprisingly a couple of days ago announced that he would not contest the forthcoming polls citing ill health as the reason.
Contrary to its reported decision of not fielding its PCC chiefs, it re-nominated former Union Minister and new Rajasthan PCC chief Sachin Pilot from Ajmer and Haryana PCC chief and sitting MP from Sirsa Ashok Tanwar besides Punjab PCC president Partap Singh Bajwa from Gurdaspur.
Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and the party’s face in the State Assembly polls where it lost in December last, Ajit Jogi, would be the contestant from Mahasamund. Ajay Singh, son of veteran Arjun Singh, has been made the Congress nominee from Satna, a seat once represented by his late father.
Former Bihar DGP Ashish Ranjan Sinha is being fielded from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s stronghold of Nalanda. Sinha belongs to the Kurmi community having a dominant presence in the constituency. Union Minister Chandresh Kumari will contest from Jodhpur despite her insistence to shift base to Himachal Pradesh, former Union Minister and currently a close confidant of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Dr CP Joshi has been shifted from Bhilwara to Jaipur Rural.
Accusing Modi and BJP of losing direction and moorings in the “unlimited lust for power”, the Congress said the first three lists of BJP show that there is a “scramble” in that party. Expressing the party’s resolve to give a good fight to Modi, AICC spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said: “Do not be surprised if Varanasi witnesses a similar spectacle as Ghaziabad from where BJP chief Rajnath Singh ran away after Congress fielded Raj Babbar.”