Fifth Congress list too mum on Sonia

Sonia’s candidature was to be a gift of sorts to Congressmen on Independence Day; party leaders were of the view that this would be a nice way to galvanise its cadre in the 53rd year of freedom. But her name didn’t figure among the 31 out of 85 cleared from UP. Also held back was the name from Rae Bareilly, which has become significant since the BJP fielded former Rajiv Gandhi aide Arun Nehru there.

In an attempt to offset the disappointment over Sonia, the party fielded Mata Prasad, former Arunachal Pradesh Governorand a friend of Sitaram Kesri, from Akbarpur against Bahujan Samaj Party General Secretary Mayawati.

The Congress is thus pitting a Dalit against a Dalit after the BSP refused to ally with the party for the elections.

Also, the CWC finally sent one of its members, Prasada, into the fray for the Lok Sabha from his hometown of Shahjahanpur. Prasada prefers the Rajya Sabha route to Parliament and has been a member of the Upper House more than once. But this time, Sonia felt he must contest for the Lok Sabha and Prasada had to fall in line. Prasada’s battle will be against Union Minister of State for Civil Supplies Satyapal Singh Yadav.

The UP Congress list is a reflection of caste equations in the State with a mix of forward castes and OBCs. People like Begum Noor Bano and Ratna Singh have been renominated from Rampur (where Bano fights Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi) and Pratapgarh, Singh’s hometown.

Three other notable candidates are Ammar Rizvi, the UPCCEthics Committee chief, from Sitapur, Rajesh Mishra, Kamalapathi Tripathi’s grandson, from Varanasi and Raj Rai Singh, wife of senior UP bureaucrat Rai Singh who once played a key role in cementing the BJP-BSP deal in which the BJP propped up Mayawati’s government.

Raj Rai Singh has been a minister in the Kalyan Singh Government and had strong BJP links. She joined the Congress recently and now gets a chance to contest against Union Welfare Minister Maneka Gandhi in Pilibhit, UP. Another convert, Ram Pujan Patel, once a BSP general secretary, has been nominated from Phulpur, which Jawaharlal Nehru represented in the past.

UP Youth Congress chief R.P.N. Singh fills the quota for the youth from Padrauna while Nirmal Khatri fills in from Faizabad for former Shiv Sena chief Pawan Pandey whom the Congress was keen to field initially.

Some candidates who lost badly last time have been changed and freshers nominated instead in the hope of victory in a state where the Congress is fighting an uphill battle. Butin Maharashtra, many sitting MPs find themselves in the fray again though this time Sharad Pawar’s NCP is expected to make things tough for them.

For example, AICC secretary Sudhir Sawant (Rajapur), Mumbai Congress chief Murli Deora (Mumbai South), Gurudas Kamat (Mumbai North-East), Manikrao Gavit (Nandurbar), Mukul Wasnik (Buldhana), Vilas Muttemwar (Nagpur), Prabha Rau (Wardha), A R Antulay (Aurangabad), Shivraj Patil (Latur), Sushil Kumar Shinde (Sholapur), Sandeepan Thorat (Pandharpur), Govindrao Adik (Kopargaon) and Prithviraj Chavan (Karad) were all sitting Lok Sabha MPs.

Interest has been infused into the contests from Mumbai North-West and Baramati with Sunil Dutt in the former and Sharad Pawar fighting his one-time follower Ram Krishna More from the latter. Dutt has in the past refused to contest on the Congress ticket as his son, Sanjay Dutt, was in jail and the Shiv Sena was helping him with the case.

However, the Congress has upset its Left allies by fielding nominees from areas where theCommunist Party of India (Marxist) and the CPI are contesting. The Congress and the Left are allies in Punjab and share the aim of defeating the BJP. However, the two will be fighting each other in Nandurbar and Ichalkaranji .

Sonia against Subba

NEW DELHI: The protracted tussle in the Congress over the candidature of lottery don M.K.Subba is coming to an end with Sonia Gandhi reluctant to field him. She has reportedly told her key aides that she “will have nothing to do with people like Subba or his ilk”.