Congress releases first list of candidates for LS polls; Rahul Gandhi to contest from Amethi, Sonia from Rae Bareli

The Congress on Thursday released its first list of 15 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, fielding UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli and party president Rahul Gandhi from Amethi. Eleven of the 15 candidates whose names were announced on Thursday will contest from Uttar Pradesh and the other four from Gujarat. Announcement of first list of candidates selected by Congress Central Election Committee for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. pic.twitter.com/FEzssyx3uV — Congress (@INCIndia) March 7, 2019 The announcement put an end to speculation that Sonia may not contest in the polls due to health reasons and the party’s newly appointed general secretary in-charge (East Uttar Pradesh) Priyanka Gandhi Vadra may be fielded from her constituency. Interestingly, the Congress has announced 11 candidates for the electorally crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, where there is still no clarity on whether the party will go it alone or be a part of the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal grand alliance. [caption id=“attachment_5573661” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. News18[/caption] Former Union ministers Salman Khurshid, Jitin Prasad and RPN Singh have been fielded from their traditional seats of Farrukhabad, Dhaurahra and Kushi Nagar respectively. Former Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Nirmal Khatri will contest from Faizabad, while Bharatsinh Solanki, the party’s ex-chief of the Gujarat unit, has been fielded from the state’s Anand constituency. The grand old party has fielded Imran Masood from Saharanpur, Saleem Iqbal Shervani from Badaun, Annu Tandon from Unnao, Rajaram Pal from Akbarpur, and Brij Lal Khabri from Jalaun (SC). Apart from Solanki, the other candidates named from Gujarat are - Raju Parmar from Ahmedabad West (SC), Prashant Patel from Vadodra, and Ranjit Mohansinh Rathwa from Chotta Udaipur (ST). Uttar Pradesh has 80 Lok Sabha seats out of which the Congress had won just two (Amethi and Raebareli) in 2014, while Gujarat has 26 seats and the Congress had drawn a blank in 2014. On Wednesday, the Congress-led UPA kick started their electoral campaign in Tamil Nadu from Kanyakumari . A meeting of the Congress Working Committee is scheduled in Ahmedabad on 12 March to devise strategies in the run-up to the general elections. This is the sixth time Sonia is contesting the general election, and the fourth time for Rahul. BSP chief Mayawati and SP’s Akhilesh Yadav had jointly announced their alliance in January. On Tuesday,the SP chief , at a press conference in Lucknow with RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary, had said the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) will contest three Lok Sabha seats as part of an alliance with the SP and the BSP. After repeated questions by reporters at the press conference, the SP chief had said the Congress was “very much in the alliance. We have left two seats (Amethi and Raebareli) for the party (Congress),” Akhilesh had said. With inputs from PTI