Gujarat Assembly polls | Congress releases first list of 43 candidates

Elections to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5, while the votes will be counted on December 8

File image. | Photo Credit: Vijay Soneji

Congress released the first list of 43 candidates for the Gujarat Assembly polls to be held in December this year on Friday late night.

Among the NOTA candidates announced by the party were former State Congress president Arjun Modhwadia from Porbandar, while Rajya Sabha MP Amiben Yagnik will contest from Ghatlodia, where Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel is the sitting MLA.

There are 10 Scheduled Tribes (ST) and five Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates in the list. The party has also fielded as many as 10 Patidar candidates in the first list.

Elections to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5, while the votes will be counted on December 8.

The candidate list was released from Delhi after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge chaired a meeting of the party’s central election committee (CEC), his first after becoming the Congress president.

According to sources, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi joined the meeting online, while the rest of the participants attended it physically at the AICC headquarters in Delhi.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Gujarat Raghu Sharma and the party’s State unit chief, Jagdish Thakor, were also in attendance.

CEC members and party general secretaries Mukul Wasnik and K.C. Venugopal, besides Mohsina Kidwai, Girija Vyas and Ambika Soni, were among those present at the meeting.