The Congress on Tuesday announced its second list of 43 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, fielding Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath once again from Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara and Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav from Rajasthan’s Jalore.
The party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi has been fielded from Assam’s Jorhat and Pradyut Bordoloi from Nagaon. Rahul Kaswan, who switched over from the BJP a few days ago to the Congress, has been fielded from Churu in Rajasthan. The second list came a day after the Congress’ Central Election Committee, chaired by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, met at the party headquarters to finalise the candidates.
In the meeting, discussions were held for more than 60 seats in the States of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Assam and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu.
The seats announced on Tuesday include 13 from Assam, 10 from Madhya Pradesh, 10 from Rajasthan, seven from Gujarat and three from Uttarakhand, besides one from Daman and Diu, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal said at a Press conference. Congress leaders Ajay Maken and Pawan Khera were also at the briefing.
However there is an unease in the Congress circle with reports emanating that Kharge has expressed not to contest the Lok Sabha elections this year.
Kharge reportedly shared to the CEC in presence of his predecessor Sonia Gandhi that he would like to skip the elections and focus more dedicatedly in the campaign and day to day affairs of the party which is poll ready for the general elections in next couple of months followed by Assembly polls in some States during the end of year.
Amongst the party veterans of high command Sonia has already opted out from electoral politics this year.
Sources said Kharge’s name was discussed for the Gulbarga constituency last week. However, the 81-year-old Rajya Sabha MP may now nominate his son-in-law Radhakrishnan Doddamani from the same seat. The party chief’s son Priyank Kharge is a Minister in the Congress Government in Karnataka.
Kharge has won twice from the Gulbarga constituency and lost in 2019. At present, he is the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. Kharge has four more years in the Rajya Sabha.
The first list released includes names of former chief Rahul Gandhi who will be contesting in the Lok Sabha election that is likely to take place in April-May this year.
The party announced 39 candidates — 16 are from Kerala, seven from Karnataka and six from Chhattisgarh, four from Telangana and two from Meghalaya and one each from Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, and Lakshwadeep.
