Congress Lists 43 LS Candidates, in Talks With Small Raj Parties

 New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday released its second list of 43 Lok Sabha candidates, which include Vaibhav Gehlot from Jalore, Nakul Nath from Chhindwara and Gaurav Gogoi from Jorhat in Assam. Rahul Kaswan, who switched over from the BJP a few days ago, has been fielded from Churu in Rajasthan.

The second list came a day after the party’s central election committee, chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, met at the AICC headquarters here to finalise the candidates. At 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 K.C. Venugopal said at a press conference. Ten candidates are from the general category, 13 OBC, 10 SC, nine ST and one minority. Out of this, more than 75 per cent of candidates are below 60 years of age. Former chief ministers Ashok Gehlot, Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh are not contesting the elections. In Uttarakhand, the Congress declared only three candidates out of five. Insiders say that in Uttarakhand, some local candidate could contest from Haridwar, or Harish Rawat’s son might contest. In Rajasthan, the Congress is in touch with smaller parties like the Bhartiya Adivasi Party and the RLP of Hanuman Beniwal.