Congress Announces The First List Of 39 Candidates
Indian National Congress (INC) released the first list of candidates for 39 Lok Sabha constituencies for the upcoming general election. The party, in a press conference attended by senior Congress leaders KC Venugopal, Pawn Khera and Ajay Maken announced candidates for constituencies in seven states – Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim. 16 out of the total 39 candidate are from Kerala and it included the former Congress president Rahul Gandhi”s name from Wayanad, which the Congress leader won with more than four lakh majority in 2019 general election.
The Chhattisgarh list features Dr. Shivkumar Dahariya (Jangir – Champa – SC), Jyotsana Mahant (Korba), former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel (Rajnandgaon), Rajendra Sahu (Durg), Vikas Upadhyay (Raipur) and Tamradhwaj Sahu (Mahasamund).
The party has announced H.R. Algur (Bijapur – SC), Anandaswamy Gaddadevara Math (Haveri), Geetha Shivarajkumar (Shimoga), Shreyas Patel (Hassan), S.P. Muddahanumegowda (Tumkur), Venkataramegowda (Mandya) and D K Suresh (Bangalore Rural) for Karnataka.
Apart from Mr Gandhi, the Kerala list features senior leaders like Shashi Tharoor, KC Venugopal, K Muraleedharan and PCC president K Sudhakaran.
Congress party, which is the main constituent of the Opposition INDIA alliance, has so far managed to finalise seat sharing arrangements in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. It will be contesting in Jharkhand, Bihar and Maharashtra as part of the INDIA alliance, for which the seat sharing deals are yet to be finalised. According to reports, Congress is also trying to tap in Mamata Banerjee into a deal, however, the state leaders of both TMC and Congress have come in public against a deal.
Congress” first list comes one week after the ruling BJP had announced its first list of candidates of 195 names which features Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Kiren Rijiju, Sarbananda Sonowal, Mansukh Mandaviya, Arjun Meghwal, Smriti Irani and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
