The Congress’ top election body is said to have cleared the candidature of party leader Rahul Gandhi for the Wayanad constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Sources also said that Shashi Tharoor will be again fielded from Thiruvananthapuram, where he has won three consecutive Lok Sabha elections. There is, however, no official announcement from the party.
The party’s central election committee (CEC) met on Thursday evening to discuss the first batch of names. Sources indicated that several names have been cleared and the first list could be released by Friday. The discussion focused on candidates for the northeastern States, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Delhi. The Kerala unit, in fact, had proposed names of all the sitting MPs.
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Apart from Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, the meeting was attended by party leaders Sonia Gandhi, K.C. Venugopal and others. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and senior leader Ramesh Chennithala were also invited. Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy joined the call at 9.30 p.m. Mr. Reddy, according to sources, is also lobbying for Mr. Gandhi to contest from his State.
While names for most of the seats from Karnataka are said to be cleared, a decision on four or five seats has been put on hold. A few seats from Telangana are also to be decided.
For Chhattisgarh, the names of several senior leaders are said to be cleared, including that of Mr. Baghel, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Jyotsna Mahant and Shiv Dahariya.
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A significant section of the party has demanded that senior leadership should join the Lok Sabha contest to ensure that the Congress manages to get a respectable total.
At the All India Congress Committee headquarters, Mr. Baghel ducked questions from reporters on whether he would contest the polls. A significant section of the party has demanded that senior leadership should join the Lok Sabha contest to ensure that the Congress manages to get a respectable total. When asked the same question, Chhattisgarh in-charge Sachin Pilot, who too is in the list of leaders whom the party members say should contest, said that the candidates will be decided according to the winnability criteria. “Whichever person is in a position to win the election, will be asked by the party to contest and the last call lies with the CEC,” he said.
If Mr. Gandhi returns to contest the Wayanad seat, he will be facing senior Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Annie Raja. The Left has been running a campaign to dissuade Mr. Gandhi from candidature in Wayanad, saying that it would send a confused message to the electorate, as Mr. Gandhi is leading the anti-BJP battle but would primarily contest against the CPI instead of a face-off with the BJP.
The BJP had released its first list of 195 candidates on Saturday, stealing a march over the Congress. The CEC meeting started at 8 p.m. and went on for nearly two hours.
