Congress Stays Away From Hindi Heartland In Its First List, Declares All Candidates For Kerala Including Rahul Gandhi

Congress has stayed away from the Hindi heartland and has announced candidates from Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Lakshadweep, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

The party's first list of Lok Sabha candidates came on Friday (9 March) evening with 39 names. Rahul Gandhi is set to contest from Wayanad again. However, suspense remains over his Amethi candidature.

With this, it seems that the party has declared all its candidates from Kerala because as per the seat-sharing under the United Democratic Front (UDF), it was to contest 16 seats in Kerala, leaving four seats for its allies.

Of the announced seats, 18 have incumbent Congress MPs. Shashi Tharoor is set to contest from Thiruvananthapuram for the fourth time, while party general secretary KC Venugopal is set to contest from Alappuzha again after a break in 2019.

Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar's brother, DK Suresh will contest from Bengaluru Rural, a seat he has held for two terms. Recently he was in the news for remarks on the North-South divide suggesting secessionism.

Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel will contest from Rajnandgaon Lok Sabha constituency. Chhattisgarh Assembly Speaker Raman Singh has held the Rajnandgaon Assembly constituency since 2008.

While declaring the candidates, Venugopal highlighted that 24 of the 39 candidates belong to the OBC, SC, ST and minority communities. Rahul Gandhi has been emphasising the representation of these communities in his yatra.