Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge with party leader Sonia Gandhi during a ‘Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting’ with the party leaders in New Delhi.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Congress on Wednesday night announced the eighth list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections though there is still no decision on who will represent Amethi and Rae Bareli.
The Central Election Committee of Congress, chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and attended by senior leaders like Sonia Gandhi, KC Venugopal and senior state ministers KJ George and Uttam Kumar Reddy, cleared names for Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh among others.
However, sources said there was no discussion on Amethi and Rae Bareli, both Gandhi family bastions, during the meeting. Rahul Gandhi had last time lost the elections from Amethi, which he has been representing since 2004, while Sonia, who won the seat since 1999, will not be contesting this time.
There has been demand for General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to fight from Rae Bareli while party workers also want Rahul to contest again from Amethi.
According to the eighth list, there are four candidates, including Dolly Sharma from Ghaziabad. A total of 14 candidates have been named in the eighth list.
On Tuesday night, Congress had announced its seventh list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections choosing the remaining candidates for Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu.
In Chhattisgarh, the party has chosen Shashi Singh to fight Surjuga (ST) while Dr Menka Devi Singh will contest from Raigarh (ST). Devender Singh Yadav has been chosen to fight Bilaspur while Biresh Thakur has been chosen from Kanker (ST).
Congress also chose R Sudha, a lawyer, to fight from Tamil Nadu’s Mayiladuthurai. The sitting MP is from DMK but in seat sharing arrangement, the seat went to Congress.