LUCKNOW: The Congress party on Thursday released the second list of its 41 candidates for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. The party has kept the promise of giving 40% tickets to women and it is evident in the second list as well. Of the total 41 candidates announced in the second list, 16 are women.
Among the 16 women candidates, Sukhwinder Kaur is contesting from Saharanpur Nagar, Kalpana Singh from Bilari, Dr Yasmeen Rana from Charthawal, and Neeraj Kumari Prajapati from Modi Nagar. The party has reposed faith in two women candidates – Monika Suryavanshi from Khair and Preeti Dhangar from Iglas — both falling in the Aligarh district.
Moreover, the party has given tickets to nine Muslim candidates in the second list. Some of the candidates named include Haji Akhlaq from Kairana, Subodh Sharma from Muzaffarnagar, Ranjan Sharma from Meerut, Anil Dev Tyagi from Baghpat, Sushil Chaudhary from Bulandshahar and Hemant Chahar from Fatehpur Sikri.
Last week, Congress had released its first list of 125 candidates for the assembly election which included 50 women and 45 youth.
After being out of power in UP for nearly 30 years, Congress is eyeing to make a comeback in the state with a core focus on women empowerment and welfare. The party has also released a woman-centric pink manifesto promising them 40% reservation in jobs, scooties to girl students pursuing graduation and smartphones to those in class 10th.
As per the highly-placed sources in Congress, after wooing the women, the party is now focusing on youth and preparing to release a youth-centric manifesto soon. The Congress has already promised 20 lakh jobs to youth if voted to power.
In UP, of the total over 15 crore voters, the young voter till 39 years of age make a big chunk of 7.5 crore, that is around 50% of the total electorate. Of these, 19.89 lakh are first-time voters in the age group of 18-19 lakh.