Rahul fielded from Wayanad as Cong announces first list of 39 candidates

The Congress announced its first list of 39 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls on Friday evening.

The list comprised 17 sitting members of Parliament, including party leader Rahul Gandhi, who will defend his Wayanad seat. The Congress list revealed the party’s intent to push party heavyweights to contest the polls.

Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal will contest from Kerala’s Alappuzha seat, the only seat of the state’s 20 that the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. “Our target is to win all the 20 seats in Kerala,” Venugopal said. He is currently a Rajya Sabha member, and his term ends in 2026.

The Congress announced former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel will contest from the state’s Rajnandgaon seat. Former Chhattisgarh home minister Tamradhwaj Sahu will contest from Mahasamund. Three-term Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor will defend his seat in a contest that will have Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) challenge him for the seat.

The Congress’ three-term MP from Kerala’s Pathanamthitta, Anto Antony, will again contest. The BJP has fielded Congress leader and former defence minister A K Antony’s son Anil from the seat and former Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac will be the Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate.

Venugopal said the Congress was trying to resolve its differences with its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) allies, including the Trinamool Congress, in West Bengal. He said the party was approaching the elections with a focus on reducing the BJP’s seats to a minimum and was willing to sacrifice its interests to achieve that objective. “But we expect a similar level of commitment from our allies,” Venugopal said.

The Congress said of the 39 candidates, 15 were from the “general” category, and 24 were from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and minorities. It said a dozen of the candidates were below 50 years of age.

Of the 39, the Congress announced six candidates in Chhattisgarh (11 seats in the state), seven in Karnataka (total seats 28) and 16 candidates in Kerala. It also announced the name of Mohammed Hamdullaha Sayeed from Lakshadweep. Son of Congress leader PM Sayeed, he represented the seat in 2009. The seat is currently held by the Nationalist Congress Party’s Mohammed Faizal, who is facing a criminal case.

In Karnataka, D K Suresh will contest his sitting Bengaluru Rural seat. Suresh is a three-term MP and the only Congress candidate from the state in 2019. Suresh is the brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar. The Congress has fielded Kannada actor Shivarajkumar’s wife, Geetha Shivarajkumar, from Shivamogga. She is the daughter of former Karnataka chief minister the late S Bangarappa and lost the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on a Janata Dal (Secular) ticket against the BJP’s B S Yediyurappa. His son, B Y Raghavendra, is the sitting MP from Shivamogga.

In 2019, Rahul Gandhi contested also from Amethi, the constituency he had represented since 2004, but lost to the BJP’s Smriti Irani. The Congress didn’t announce any of its candidates from Uttar Pradesh, where there is speculation that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could contest from Rae Bareli after her mother, Sonia Gandhi, was elected to the Rajya Sabha last month.

 

39 in grand old party’s 1st list

- Rahul Gandhi to contest from Wayanad again

- Former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandgaon

- KC Venugopal from Alappuzha

- Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram

- Geetha Shivarajkmar, wife of Kannada actor Shivarajkumar, from Shivamogga

- 12 under 50 years of age, 24 SCs/STs/OBCs/minorities