Congress has confirmed that former Congress President Rahul Gandhi will be seeking re-election from Kerala's Wayanad in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections by unveiling its first list of 39 candidates on Friday.
The Central Election Committee meeting finalised the names of the candidates from eight states and one Union Territory at a meeting chaired by party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday.
The states include Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Telangana, and Tripura.
Kerala will see three of the party‘s high-profile leaders including Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary (organization) KC Venugopal from Alappuzha, Working Committee member and Sitting MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor in the fray.
The list also includes heavyweights such as former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel contesting from the Rajnandgaon constituency.
Battle of biggies in Wayanad, Thiruvananthapuram
Though the list is on expected lines, some of the key contests to watch out for would be in Wayanad, where Rahul Gandhi will be taking on his INDIA bloc ally, the CPI’s Annie Raja.
Rahul, who was previously an MP from Amethi, had lost from there in 2019, but won from Wayanad.
The other big contest will be between Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram.
'List based on winnability and loyalty'
Of the 39 candidates announced, 15 are from the general category and 24 are from the SC/ST/minorities categories.
"Our priority is to win the maximum Lok Sabha seats for the Congress party to dislodge the Modi government in the next elections," KC Venugopal said after the announcement.
There were no real surprises in the list and Congress has repeated most of its sitting MPs unlike the BJP which dropped many of theirs.
Venugopal said, "I don't know why BJP cut their sitting MPS. We are going by winnability and loyalty factors."
The BJP has already released their first list of 195 candidates and the second list is expected soon.
Though speculation is rife over Rahul Gandhi's candidature from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's from Rae Bareli, Venugopal declined to confirm anything.
"The second meeting of the CEC will be held on March 11. More seats will be discussed then," he said.
Both the seats have been bastions of the Gandhi family, though Smriti Irani won from Amethi last time around, and the local units of the Congress have demanded that the two scions of the Congress first family should contest from there.
However, the screening committee of Uttar Pradesh hasn't yet held any meetings to pick the candidates.
Congress fields Geetha Shivarajkumar from Shimoga, renominates D K Suresh from Bangalore Rural
In Karnataka, the Congress retained Deputy CM DK Shivkumar's brother DK Suresh in Bangalore Rural. No names have been announced for the Kalburgi seat amid speculations that Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge will contest from there.
Kannada actor Shivarajkumar's wife Geetha Shivarajkumar (Shimoga) also figures in the list of seven candidates in Karnataka.
A three-time MP, Suresh is the brother of Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar and the sitting MP from Bangalore Rural. He was the only Congress candidate to win in the 2019 general elections in the State.
The other five candidates are: H R Algur (Bijapur), Anandswamy Gaddadevarmath (Haveri), SP Muddahanumegowda (Tumkur), Venkataramane Gowda (Mandya) and Shreyas M Patel (Hassan).
The party naming Geetha Shivarajkumar for the Shivamogga seat seems to have set the stage for an interesting battle in the home district of BJP veteran BS Yediyurappa.
Geetha, daughter of former Chief Minister late S Bangarappa, contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Shivamogga (Shimoga) on a Janata Dal (Secular) ticket and lost to Yediyurappa.
The seat is currently held by Yediyurappa's son, BY Raghavedra.
Geetha, sister of Karnataka Minister for School Education Madhu Bangarappa and daughter-in- law of Kannada thespian late Rajkumar, joined the Congress in April last year ahead of the Assembly elections in Karnataka.
Venkataramane Gowda, also known as Star Chandru, is a contractor by profession.
The Mandya seat where he is contesting from is currently represented by Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent backed by the BJP.
The Congress had denied renomination to Muddahanumegowda from Tumkur in the 2019 elections to make way for Congress-JD(S) alliance candidate HD Deve Gowda who, however, lost the polls.
Muddahanumegowda officially joined the BJP in 2022 but had kept a low profile. He returned to the Congress fold only last month and has now been named from the seat.
"Congress has named candidates in segments where there was no confusion over the nominee," a party leader said.
The BJP-JD(S) combine is yet to come out with its list of candidates.
The BJP had swept the 2019 general elections, bagging 25 of the total 28 seats in the state, while an independent (Sumalatha Ambareesh) backed by the party had also emerged victorious.
The Congress and the JD(S), which were running a coalition government back then and fought the election together, had come a cropper winning just one seat each.
But the political scene has changed significantly since then; the Congress scored a thumping victory in the Assembly elections in May last year and now appears battle-ready, determined to put up a strong show in the Lok Sabha polls.
It is also a role reversal of sorts for JD(S) which joined the BJP-led NDA in September last year and wants to prove that it's still a force to reckon with, particularly in South Karnataka.
Four from Telangana figure in Congress contestants list for LS polls
Four candidates from Telangana including former Union Minister Balram Naik (Mahabubabad) also figured in the first list.
The grand old party will be fielding Suresh Kumar Shetkar (Zaheerabad), C Vamshi Chand Reddy (Mahabubnagar) and Raghuveer Kunduru (Nalgonda).
Naik served as Union Minister of State between 2009 and 2013 under the UPA-II government.
Shetkar was a Lok Sabha member from Zaheerabad from 2009 to 2014, while Reddy is a former MLA.
(With inputs from PTI.)
