Congress decides on 15 of the 17 UP choices; Amethi and Rae Bareli are left out

NEW DELHI: The Congress issued a list of 14 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, MP, and Telangana on Wednesday night, while four more candidates from the state were added. There are currently just two UP seats remaining for which the party has not yet announced its candidates: Rae Bareli and Amethi. A decision on these two seats has not yet been made.

Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has been fielded by the BJP, while Rao Yadvendra Singh has been designated the Congress face from Guna in MP. Dolly Sharma from Ghaziabad, Shivram Valmiki from Bulandshahar, Nakul Dubey from Sitapur, and Virendra Chaudhary from Maharajganj are the candidates running in the UP election. In Jharkhand, Kalicharan Munda (Khunti) and Sukhdeo Bhagat (Lohardaga) are the other two candidates.

Jai Prakash Patel, a BJP MLA who just joined the party, will run from Hazaribagh. According to sources, the coveted Ranchi seat, where former Union Minister Subodh Kant Sahay is the front-runner, was placed on hold for more consideration during the Congress Election Committee meeting on Wednesday.

There was no discussion on Rae Bareli & Amethi on Wednesday, according to UP Congress chairman Ajay Rai. “At the previous meeting, we had expressed our opinions on these seats. The leadership must now make a choice,” he said.

The decision of the state unit, which recommended that members of the Gandhi family run for the two seats, was presented to the panel by UP Congress officials at their meeting last week. Rahul Gandhi’s name has already been declared by the Congress from Wayanad, but there are requests that he run from Amethi as well and that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra run from Rae Bareli, the seat that Sonia Gandhi is leaving vacant.

The announced candidates are Athram Suguna from Adilabad, C. Kiran Reddy from Bhongir, Neelam Madhu from Medak, and veteran Jeevan Reddy from Nizamabad.
On Wednesday, the Congress election panel decided not to make a final judgement about Warangal and Khammam. Two Telangana government ministers who joined the party before the state elections are vying for the Khammam seat. According to reports, a family member of a prominent Telangana politician has also made a claim. To choose a winner, Congress is probably going to convene a conference of contenders.