Rahul Gandhi Wayanad, Bhupesh Baghel Rajnandgaon and Shashi Tharoor Thiruvananthapuram
New Delhi, March 8
Nearly a week after the ruling BJP declared 195 candidates for the upcoming General Election, principal Opposition Congress on Friday named 39 candidates, fielding former party president Rahul Gandhi from Kerala’s Wayanad which he won for the first time in 2019.
BJP raises question over Suresh after anti-india remark
BJP leader Amit Malviya said, “DK Suresh, brother of Karnataka Dy CM DK Shivakumar, who called for a ‘separate’ South India, has been given ticket again. India’s balkanisation is Congress’ unfinished agenda.”
The list features top guns of the Congress, including former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandgaon; former Chhattisgarh minister Tamradhwaj Sahu (74) from Mahasamund; DK Suresh, brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, from Bangalore (Rural) which he has been representing in the Lok Sabha (LS) for the last two terms.
In a major development, the Congress has also fielded sitting Rajya Sabha MP and AICC general secretary organisation KC Venugopal, the closest Rahul aide, from Kerala’s Alappuzha, the only constituency the CPM won in 2019 out of 20 in the state. The remaining 19 went to the Congress-led UDF with the Congress alone bagging 15 seats -– the highest LS share it got anywhere in India.
K Sudhakaran, chief of the Kerala unit of Congress and Lok Sabha member from Kannur, will defend his seat and so will three-term Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor.
Two contests in Kerala will be interesting -– Rahul Gandhi versus Annie Raja, wife of CPI general secretary D Raja in Wayanad and MoS IT and Electronics Rajeev Chandrashekhar opposite Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram. The 39 names were finalised in a meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee held here yesterday where 60 candidates were deliberated upon for 11 states, with consensus only on 39.
In Karnataka, suspense continues on Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s former LS seat Gulbarga where the buzz is that his son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani could get the ticket. The list, released by Venugopal and All India Congress Committeetreasurer Ajay Maken, consists of six constituencies of Chhattisgarh (out of 11), seven out 28 constituencies of Karnataka, 15 out of the 20 constituencies of Kerala, one Lakshadweep constituency, both constituencies of Meghalaya, the only constituency of Nagaland, the only Lok Sabha seat of Sikkim, four out of the 17 constituencies of Telangana and one out of the two constituencies of Tripura.
Briefing reporters here, Venugopal said 24 out of the 39 candidates announced today belonged to SC, ST, OBC and minority communities. Twelve were aged below fifty years, eight between 50 and 60 years, 12 between 61 and 70 years and seven between 71 and 76 years.
Tamradhwaj Sahu (74), former minister of Chhattisgarh, who has been given ticket from Mahasamund, is one of the senior-most candidates in the list. The Congress has fielded former Union Minister Charan Das Mahant’s wife Jyotsna Mahant from Chhattisgarh’s Korba.
On tie-ups with other partners of the INDIA bloc, Venugopal said the Congress was serious on the issue of alliance. However, the other parties should cooperate, too, to strike up seat-sharing arrangements, he said. “Our objective is to reduce the number of BJP MPs,” he said.
He was silent when asked whether Rahul would contest only from Wayanad and not Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi.
The fact that the Congress on Friday announced candidate for the Tura seat in Meghalaya, besides Shillong where it has re-nominated its sitting Member of Parliament Vincent Pala, shows that it has failed to clinch a seat-sharing arrangement with Trinamool Congress in Meghalaya. The Trinamool Congress enjoys support in the Garo hills and wanted to fight from Tura in alliance with the Congress.
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