New Delhi, March 10
Four sitting MPs from Punjab are
among the 75 names which figure in the Congress party’s first list of candidates
released here today.
There are no surprises in the Punjab list as there was no
major debate on these names. Mr R.L. Bhatia will be contesting the Amritsar
seat, Ms Parneet Kaur is again being fielded from Patiala while Mrs Santosh
Chaudhary and Mr Shamsher Singh Dullo have been named from Phillaur and Ropar,
respectively. Similarly, Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal has again been allotted the
Chandigarh seat.
Releasing the first list of its Lok Sabha candidates, AICC
general secretary Ambika Soni maintained that several more names would be
cleared shortly since the Central Election Committee (CEC) is scheduled to meet
for three consecutive days — from March 13-15. She was also quick to clarify
that it should not be assumed that the other sitting MPs who are not in today’s
list have been dropped.
Besides Punjab, other states which figure in the first
list include Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka,
Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and
Chandigarh.
The notable names in the list include Congress spokesperson S.
Jaipal Reddy, who retains his Miryalguda seat in Andhra Pradesh while firebrand
MP Renuka Chaudhary has been given the Khammam seat. These announcements,
however, could create problems for the Congress as these were being claimed by
the CPM, its ally in the state.
With the exception of veteran leader Mr Shyama
Charan Shukla, who has shifted from his old constituency Mahasamund to Raipur,
others in the list have retained their old seats. Mr Jyotriaditya Scindia will
contest from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Mr C.K. Jaffer Sharief returns to battle it
out from Bangalore North in Karnataka, Santosh Mohan Dev gets Silchar, Mr
Priyaranjan Dasmunshi and Mr Ghani Khan Chaudhary will contest from Raiganj and
Malda, respectively, in West Bengal.
Senior leader Kamal Nath is also being
fielded from his old constituency Chindwara although the Gondwana Gantrantra
Party (GPP), a subregional group with whom the Congress wants to forge an
alliance, had staked its claim on it.
Despite his best efforts to relocate to a
safer seat, former minister Buta Singh returns to Jalore in Rajasthan and former
Gujarat PCC chief Shankarsinh Vaghela, who was being persuaded to take on Deputy
Prime Minister L.K. Advani, in Gandhinagar, has decided to stick to his old
constituency, Kapadvanj.
As for Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress is still
waiting to forge a last-minute alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the
party played safe and cleared the names of three sitting MPs. These include Noor
Bano from Rampur, Ratna Singh from Pratapgargh and Shriprakash Jaiswal from
Kanpur.
In Maharashtra, too, the Congress took the cautious route since its
talks with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP on seat sharing are still inconclusive.
Among the seven names released Lok Sabha deputy leader Shivraj Patil has been
named for the Latur seat while Mr Sunil Dutt will contest from Bombay North
West.
Besides announcing the first list of candidates well in advance, the
Congress has now gone into an overdrive as far as its campaign is concerned.
Tomorrow, senior party leaders will release a chargesheet against the NDA
government in four cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore.
At the same
time, Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s jan samparak abhiyan is continuing. She
is at present in Andhra Pradesh and this will be followed by a similar programme
in the tribal areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat from March 16 to 18 and in
Chhattisgarh on March 20 and 21.
