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The Congress on Sunday released its first lists of candidates for the Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, fielding all three of its Lok Sabha MPs from Telangana.
It also fielded its Bastar MP, the party’s state unit chief, Deepak Baij, from Chhattisgarh’s Chitrakot Assembly seat.
For the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the Congress released a list of 144 candidates, including 69 of its 96 sitting legislators. Former Chief Minister Kamal Nath will contest from his Chhindwara seat. The party has fielded television actor Vikram Mastal against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Budhni. Mastal portrayed Hanuman in the reboot of the Ramayan serial produced by Sagar Arts in 2008.
Amid speculation that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could field Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Shivpuri Assembly seat after his aunt, four-term sitting legislator and State Minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia, declined to contest, the Congress has fielded KP Singh. Singh is a six-time legislator from the neighbouring Pichhore seat.
Shivpuri and Pichhore are part of the Guna Lok Sabha constituency, which Jyotiraditya represented from 2002 as a Congress MP until losing in 2019 to the BJP and crossed over to that party a year later. From Kolaras, another seat in the Guna Lok Sabha constituency, the Congress has fielded Baijnath Yadav, who had joined the BJP along with Jyotiraditya but later returned.
The Congress’s Madhya Pradesh list has 39 candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 22 from Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 30 Scheduled Tribes (STs). It also has 19 women candidates, and 65 are below 50 years of age. The party has fielded Awadhesh Nayak, who crossed over from the BJP, against State Home Minister Narottam Mishra from Datia. In the list of 144, the party has fielded 47 new candidates from the last time.
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In the 119-member Telangana Assembly, where the Congress has released a list of 55 candidates, the party has fielded all three of its Lok Sabha members — Malkajgiri MP A Revanth Reddy, Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy and Bhongir MP Komatireddy Venkat Reddy. The Congress list has raised eyebrows for flouting its Udaipur declaration that promised only one party ticket for one family. While N Uttam Kumar Reddy is its Huzurnagar candidate, his wife N Padmavathi is the Congress candidate from Kodad, where she lost in 2018.
From Malkajgiri, the Congress has fielded Mynampally Hanumanth Rao and his son M Rohit Rao from Medak. Hanumanth Rao quit the Bharat Rashtra Samithi recently after the party refused Rohit a ticket. Author and former journalist Kota Neelima is the Congress candidate from the Sanathnagar seat in Hyderabad. In the 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly, the Congress released a list of 30 candidates, with Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel contesting from his sitting Patan seat and his deputy, TS Singh Deo, from his sitting Ambikapur seat.
The party’s Bastar MP, Deepak Baij, will contest the Chitrakot seat, which he represented thrice from 2008 to 2018. In the list of 30, it has included 13 sitting ministers but dropped eight sitting MLAs.
The Congress is yet to release lists for Mizoram and Rajasthan, the other two poll-bound states.
Mizoram votes on November 7, with Chhattisgarh’s 20 seats going to polls on the same day. The remaining 70 seats in Chhattisgarh will vote on November 17, the same day as Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan will vote on November 25 and Telangana on November 30.
