Congress releases first list of 39 Lok Sabha candidates, includes Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad
Congress has released its first list of 39 Lok Sabha candidates, which included Rahul Gandhi from his sitting Wayanad constituency in Kerala, AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal from Alappuzha and former CM Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandangaon in Chhattisgarh.
The formal decision on Gandhi contesting from Amethi will be taken when the central election committee takes up the party's probable list for Uttar Pradesh later. Rahul seeking re-election from the safe seat Wayanad shows his disinclination to fight from the old Amethi seat without taking an electoral insurance from the Kerala seat, where Gandhi-led Congress' main rival BJP is just a marginal player.
The first list has 24 candidates from the OBC-SC-ST minority segments, 15 from the general category. While 12 are below the 50 age bracket, eight are from the 50-60 age group. It includes many sitting MPs.
The first list included 14 of the 15 Congress sitting MPs from Kerala, including Shashi Tharoor, who will now seek his fourth consecutive term from Thiruvananthapuram. Venugopal, currently representing Rajasthan in the Rajya Sabha as the leadership had persuaded him not to seek re-election from Alappuzha in 2019 due to his preoccupation with organisational matters, now returns to his home constituency, with the Gandhis' clearance, to try and wrest it from the CPI-M.
It also means that Congress is ready to sacrifice a RS seat from Rajasthan if Venugopal wrests Alappuzha. After Kerala Congress veteran, the late K Karunakaran's daughter, Padmaja
