New Delhi: With just six days left for filing of nominations for Rajasthan polls, Congress, on Tuesday, released its fourth list of 56 candidates, retaining 12 sitting MLAs while dropping eight others who are either party MLAs or independents.
So far, Congress has announced names for 151 of the 200 seats, by repeating 99 sitting MLAs while dropping 10. Out of these, 21 are women. Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) is expected to clear the names for the remaining 49 seats soon.
The latest list showed that Vikas Chaudhary (Kishangarh) and Surendra Goyal (Jaitaran), who crossed over from BJP, were fielded. Meanwhile, two independent MLAs Mahadev Singh (Khandela) and Kanti Prasad Meena (Thanagazi), who were supporting the Gehlot government also made it to the list. Of the 56, around 20 are new faces while seven are women.
Congress national spokesperson Prof Gourav Vallabh has been fielded from Udaipur, which was represented by BJP’s Ghulab Chand Kataria untill recently before he resigned to become Governor. While a BSP-turned-Congress MLA Sandeep Yadav was replaced with Imran Khan in Tijara, another BSP-turned-Congress lawmaker Jogendra Awana was fielded from Nadbai.
None of the three Gehlot loyalists accused of leading the rebellion in September last year and not allowing a meeting of Congress Legislature Party – Shanti Dhariwal, Mahesh Joshi, and Dharmendra Rathore — find space in the third list also. There were reports that Dhariwal is seeking a ticket for his son.
The CEC chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge discussed names for the remaining seats. The meeting was attended by former party chief Sonia Gandhi, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Congress Rajasthan in-charge Sukhjinder Randhawa and the party’s state unit chief Govind Dotasra among others. Rahul Gandhi did not attend as he was in Telangana to attend a campaign rally.
Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal and Rajasthan Screening Committee chief Gaurav Gogoi were also in attendance. While the party’s first list had 33, the second list had 43 and the third 19.
(Published 31 October 2023, 15:58 IST)