Congress CEC Meet Underway to Pick Candidates for LS Polls, Announcement For Telangana & Kerala Tomorrow

The Congress party on Thursday held its first Central Election Committee meeting to finalise candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Congress parliamentary party chairperson Sonia Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge were present in the meeting held at party headquarters in the national capital.

The states under consideration for discussion include Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Meghalaya, Tripura, Sikkim, and Manipur. A total of 60 seats across these states are likely to be discussed in the meeting.

According to the sources, the CEC meeting for Telangana and Kerala has been concluded and the announcement is likely to be made on Friday. Meetings for the remaining states are still in progress.

Speculation is rife over Rahul Gandhi’s candidature from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s from Rae Bareli, a constituency previously held by Sonia Gandhi. Both the seats are considered bastions of the Gandhi family and the local units of the Congress have demanded that the two scions of the Congress first family should contest from there.

Rahul Gandhi, who was previously an MP from Amethi, lost the seat last time but won from Wayanad in Kerala.

Meanwhile, several states have already held meetings of their respective screening committees and have forwarded the list of candidates for seats in their states.

Last week, the BJP released its first list of 195 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. Among the declared seats, 51 are from Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, and five from Delhi. The list includes 28 women leaders and 47 candidates under the age of 50.

Comparatively, five years ago, the BJP contested 436 out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. The announcement of 195 seats last Saturday means the BJP has already disclosed nearly 40% of the total for 2019. Notably, in 2019, the BJP’s initial list of around 180 candidates was revealed on March 21 — more than 10 days after the announcement of the election schedule.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to contest from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi for the third time.

(With inputs from PTI)