Less than a week after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unveiled its initial list of 195 candidates for the upcoming general elections, the Indian National Congress has presented its countermove by announcing 39 names, including prominent figures such as Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor, and Bhupesh Baghel.
The Congress party announced the candidates for constituencies in Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Telangana, and Tripura.
Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) president and former MLA S Supongmeren Jamir has been named the Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha polls in the Nagaland parliamentary constituency.
During Friday’s announcement, Venugopal clarified that the Congress Central Election Committee carefully selected the candidates, highlighting that 24 out of the 39 nominees are from the Other Backward Classes (OBC), SC, ST, and minority communities.
After the announcement, Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal expressed the party’s objective, stating, “…Our priority is to win the maximum Lok Sabha seats to defeat PM Modi in the next elections. Our target is to win the maximum number of parliament seats for the Congress party.”
The names of the candidates were finalized during the Congress party’s Central Election Committee meeting held in New Delhi on Thursday. While Rahul Gandhi is confirmed to contest from Wayanad in Kerala, uncertainty lingers over whether he will contest a second seat from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, like in 2019. The party has indicated that discussions on the remaining states will take place in subsequent meetings.
The Congress will convene its second Election Committee meeting on 11 March to deliberate on candidate nominations for the remaining states in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The announced candidates primarily cover southern and northeastern states, with Chhattisgarh and the Union Territory of Lakshadweep being the exceptions. With a predominant focus on the south, the move aligns with the Congress’s stronghold in Karnataka and Telangana, while strategically targeting regions where the BJP has relatively weaker influence.
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