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Journalism of Courage
The Congress on Friday announced its first list of 39 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, fielding senior leader Rahul Gandhi once again from Wayanad in Kerala, former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandgaon, and former Chhattisgarh Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu from Mahasamund.
The candidatures of Baghel and Sahu signal the Congress’s intention to field its senior leaders in the Hindi heartland states, where the party was wiped out in the 2019 elections. There is talk in party circles about fielding former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Sachin Pilot.
By fielding All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP K C Venugopal the party has signalled that veteran parliamentarians in the Upper House may have to prepare to contest the Lok Sabha polls, party insiders said. Venugopal will contest from Alappuzha in Kerala, a constituency he has represented in the past. It is the only one of Kerala’s 20 constituencies that the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) lost last time.
Venugopal’s decision to fight the Lok Sabha election is surprising since he has a little over two years left in his Rajya Sabha term. If he wins the election, he will have to resign his Rajya Sabha membership from Rajasthan and the resultant by-elections for the remaining term will see the ruling BJP easily winning the seat.
Sources said Gandhi might contest again from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh which he lost to Union Minister Smriti Irani in 2019. There is still suspense over the electoral debut of AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Raebareli, a seat represented by her mother Sonia Gandhi since 2004. The next meeting of the Congress’s Central Election Committee is likely on March 11 during which the candidates from UP may be discussed.
The first list of candidates, announced by Venugopal and party treasurer Ajay Maken includes 18 seats that the party currently holds. Of the 39 candidates, 28, or more than 70%, are from southern states (16 from Kerala, seven from Karnataka, four from Telangana, and one from the Union Territory of Lakshadweep). The party has two governments in the south and had the maximum number of MPs from Kerala last time.
Fifteen of the candidates belong to the general category and 24 are from the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and minority communities. The 39 include eight SC/ST-reserved seats. According to the party, 12 of the candidates are under the age of 50 while there are seven in the 71-76 age bracket.
There were no real surprises in the list. In Kerala, the party has retained all sitting parliamentarians except Thrissur MP T N Prathapan. He has been replaced by incumbent Vadakara MP K Muraleedharan, the son of former CM K Karunakaran. He will take on popular Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi who has been fielded by the BJP. The Left candidate in the seat is CPI’s V S Sunil Kumar. In Vadakara, the Congress has fielded its young MLA Shafi Parambil.
Among the renominated MPs are Gandhi, who will be taking on his INDIA bloc ally CPI’s Annie Raja, CWC member Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram, state Congress president K Sudhakaran from Kannur, Congress whip in the Lok Sabha Kodikkunnil Suresh from Mavelikkara, and young leaders Hibi Eden and Dean Kuriakose from Ernakulam and Idukki respectively.
In Karnataka, the party has fielded Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar’s brother and sitting MP D K Suresh once again from Bangalore Rural. The party has fielded Geeta Shivarajkumar, the daughter-in-law of late actor Dr Rajkumar and daughter of former Chief Minister S Bangarappa from Shimoga. She joined the Congress ahead of the Assembly elections in Karnataka last year. She had contested the 2014 parliamentary polls from Shimoga as the JD(S) candidate against BJP veteran and former CM B S Yediyurappa but lost. The seat is currently held by Yediyurappa’s son B Y Raghavendra.
In Hassan, the Congress has fielded M Shreyas Patel, the grandson of former MP late G Puttaswamy Gowda. He will in all likelihood take on former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda’s grandson and sitting MP Prajwal Revanna. Patel lost the last Assembly election from Holenarasipura. The other candidates are district Congress president H R Algur from Bijapur (SC-reserved) seat, Anandaswamy Gaddadevarmath from Haveri, S P Muddahanumegowda from Tumkur, and Venkataramegowda, a contractor by profession, from Mandya.
Muddahanumegowda was the Congress MP from Tumkur from 2014 to 2019 but had to vacate his seat for the Congress-JD(S) alliance candidate H D Deve Gowda in 2019. An upset Muddahanumegowda left the Congress and joined the BJP in 2022 only to return to the party last month.
In Chhattisgarh, the party has fielded sitting MP Jyotsana Mahant once again from Korba; former state minister Shivkumar Dahariya, who lost the recent Assembly election from Arang, in Jangir-Champa (SC-reserved); and former MLA Vikas Upadhyay, who lost from Raipur City West Assembly seat, from the Raipur constituency.
In Telangana, the party has fielded former MP Suresh Kumar Shetkar from Zahirabad. Interestingly, the party announced his candidature from the Narayankhed seat in last year’s Assembly elections but replaced him later. The other Lok Sabha candidates from the state are former MP and Union Minister Balram Naik Porika from Mahabubabad (ST-reserved), AICC secretary Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy from Mahbubnagar, and Raghuveer Kunduru from Nalgonda.
The party has fielded former MP Mohammad Hamdullah Sayeed from Lakshadweep and in Meghalaya, it has repeated sitting MP Vincent Pala from Shillong and fielded former MLA Saleng A Sangma from Tura. Sikkim Congress president Gopal Chettri has been nominated from the Sikkim seat; Tripura Congress president and former MLA Ashish Kumar Saha from Tripura West; and S Supongmeren Jamir from Nagaland.
