Congress general secretary in charge of organisations KC Venugopal announced the first list of 39 candidates today for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The list included the name of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi. He will contest in his sitting seat from Kerala”s Wayanad. The list comprises candidates from Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim.

The first list of candidates was confirmed during the Congress party”s Central Election Committee meeting held in New Delhi on Thursday. Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge former head Sonia Gandhi and other senior leaders attended the meeting. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi joined the discussions through Zoom.

Notably, Rahul Gandhi”s Amethi seat is yet to be confirmed and the first list did not include candidates from Uttar Pradesh. The party has informed that the remaining nominations will be announced in the next meeting and the party will hold the next meeting by March 10, according to reports.

Speaking at the press conference, Mr Venugopal expressed the party”s commitment towards reducing the BJP”s seat to the maximum extent possible. “Congress party is very clear: we are here to reduce BJP seats to the maximum extent possible. We are ready to sacrifice anything to reduce BJP seats. But we are expecting the same level of partnership from other partners also. In some states, we need to move forward,” he said.

The party has picked a mixture of young and experienced candidates as 12 out of the total 39 were aged below 50 and eight were aged below 60. Some of the party heavyweights included in the list are Bhupesh Baghel, K Muraleedharan, KC Venugopal and Shashi Tharoor.

See the list of candidates and their constituencies announced on Friday evening here