NEW DELHI, 8 Mar: The Congress’ Central Election Committee (CEC) on Thursday finalised the names of 40 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, including that of Rahul Gandhi from Kerala’s Wayanad, sources said.
A total of 60 Lok Sabha seats from 11 states and union territories were discussed during deliberations at the CEC meeting which was chaired by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, they said.
Discussions were held on Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Sikkim, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya and Lakshwadeep.
The Congress’ legislature party leader VD Satheesan said that the party will contest 16 seats in Kerala and four will be contested by its allies in the state.
“The CEC has taken a decision as to who are the candidates on the 16 seats. The AICC will announce the names of the candidates tomorrow,” Satheesan said.
Gandhi will seek reelection from Kerala’s Wayanad seat, according to the sources.
AICC in-charge Delhi Deepak Babaria said that a preliminary discussion took place for Delhi candidates, where the party is contesting three seats while its INDIA bloc ally AAP is contesting the remaining four.
He said that a discussion on Delhi seats will be held again on 11 March.
While former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel will be fielded from Rajnandgaon, former minister Tamradhwaj Sahu is set to fight the elections from the state’s Mahasamund seat. Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal is also among the finalised candidates, the sources said.
Former Chhattisgarh deputy chief minister TS Singhdeo will not be contesting the polls, they added.
Kharge, former party chief Sonia Gandhi and Venugopal, as well as other senior leaders who are part of the CEC were present at the meeting.
The Congress has not declared any candidate so far. Last week, the BJP came out with its first list of 195 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.
Congress sources said that the party is likely to declare its first list of candidates soon to enable the nominees to start campaigning.
Gandhi may also contest from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Rae Bareli, a seat which was previously held by Sonia Gandhi. Both the seats are considered bastions of the Gandhi family and the local units of the Congress have demanded that “the two scions of the Congress’ first family should contest from there.”
Gandhi, who was previously an MP from Amethi, lost the seat in 2019 but won from Wayanad in Kerala.
Meanwhile, several state units of the Congress have already held meetings of their respective screening committees and forwarded the list of probable candidates in their states.
Ambika Soni, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, TS Singhdeo and Mohammad Jawaid are other members of the CEC. (PTI)