The Congress leadership has summoned the former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to the Capital to ask him to contest from Amritsar against BJP leader Arun Jaitley. Mr. Singh, according to party sources likely to meet party president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday.
The Congress, that is being seen as the underdog in these elections, is now belatedly trying to put its best foot forward. Mr Singh, the erstwhile Maharaja of Patiala, is also a former PCC chief and the party's tallest leader in Punjab.
Party sources added that Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa, who is considered to be not in the best of terms with Mr. Singh, is also pushing for his candidature.
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari, who was hospitalised recently, has been persuaded to contest from Ludhiana, the seat he represents in the current Lok Sabha.
The Congress, meanwhile, appeared to be in the mood to change its sitting MPs from South Delhi and West Delhi, Ramesh Kumar and Mahabal Mishra. In the recent Delhi Assembly elections, the three Lok Sabha constituencies from where the Congress failed to get a single assembly seat were South Delhi, West Delhi and New Delhi.
Party general secretary Ajay Maken has, however, been renominated for the New Delhi constituency as he offered his seat for the party's primary – and won. NSUI president Rohit Choudhury is being considered for South Delhi, party sources said.
As the lists of candidates are being released, it is gradually becoming clear that the party leadership is trying hard to pump in some energy into reluctant candidates: on Wednesday, a sitting MP, who is a Minister of State, was seen pleading with the general secretary in charge of his State to change his constituency, and the general secretary, in turn, telling him to have faith in himself.
