The Congress, by nominating Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena from Rajasthan’s Dausa constituency rather than Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, which he has represented since 2004, has set off a battle of brothers — the BJP candidate, this time, is the minister’s younger brother, Harish Chand Meena. Both Meena brothers are former IPS officers from the Rajasthan cadre; both have been DGPs of the State. In Bharatpur, the sitting candidate Ratan Singh has been replaced by Sanjay Yadav.
Of the 16 names in its fifth list, released on Monday evening, there are three sitting MLAs from Punjab, including CLP leader Sunil Kumar Jakhar, son of party veteran and former Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar, from Firozpur. Indeed, the Congress has consciously decided to pull out all the stops in Punjab, fielding its strongest possible candidates, including former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh against BJP heavyweight Arun Jaitley in Amritsar, and party general secretary Ambika Soni in Anantpur Sahib.
Of the three names from Tamil Nadu in Monday’s list, the candidate from Dharmapuri is Vazhapadi Rama Suganthan, son of former TNCC chief Vazhapadi Ramamurthy. The other two are Victory M. Jayakumar from Tiruvallur, and K. Selvaraj from Pollachi.
Thus far, the Congress has released the names of 379 of its candidates. While the party is yet to release the list of its nominees from Telangana and the successor State of Andhra Pradesh, both for the Lok Sabha as well as the Assembly, it has also yet to name another 20-odd names from Uttar Pradesh, including Varanasi from where the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is going to contest. As far as Telangana is concerned, party sources said that the 12 sitting MPs are likely to be re-nominated: the problem is with the other region.
Meanwhile, it appeared almost certain that Union MoS for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari will not be contesting the Ludhiana seat that he currently represents.
