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Congress changes Jaipur candidate amid uproar
In Uttar Pradesh, a state where the Congress won just one of the 80 seats, the party has made a number of changes
The Congress party replaced Sunil Sharma, its controversial candidate from Jaipur, with Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, a former Rajasthan minister who has been a spokesperson of state unit and is party president of Jaipur district.
A controversy erupted after Sharma was given a ticket from Jaipur in an earlier list. His critics pointed to Sharma’s long association with Jaipur Dialogues, an organisation that has been critical of the Congress and its leaders, particularly Rahul Gandhi.
Sharma’s candidature was questioned by Congress leader and central working committee member Shashi Tharoor. “He must have undergone some sort of Pauline epiphany on the road to 24 Akbar! This is just one of several dozen tweets from his handle attacking me,” Tharoor wrote on X (formerly Twitter) after Sharma’s nomination.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP also shared a post from 2021 edition of the Jaipur Dialogues handle that criticized former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and him. Jaipur Dialogues is seen as a right-wing platform and Sharma has been its director. The dominant section of the state leadership had backed Sharma, who is known as a resourceful person in political circles, a member of the party’s poll panel maintained, seeking anonymity.
The party has also named Pratibha Suresh Dhanorkar from Maharashtra’s Chandrapur and Murari Lal Meena from the reserved seat of Dausa in Rajasthan.
Candidates dropped in 4th list
The Congress has changed more than 60% of its candidates in its latest list—its fourth since early March – that was announced on Saturday, pushing new faces, especially where it has done poorly in recent elections.
It has changed candidates in 11 of 12 parliamentary constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, including two-term chief minister Digvijaya Singh. In 2019, Singh had fought against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur but lost. This time, Singh has been shifted to Rajgarh that has his family bastion of Raghogarh.
“After the assembly poll debacle in Madhya Pradesh, there is a need to rethink about the poll strategy. Of course, we have given ticket to sitting MP Nakul Nath, but we decided to make wholesale change in the list of candidates,” a leader involved in the selection said, decling to be named.
In December, nearly all Congress leaders had expected the party to win in Madhya Pradesh, a state where the it won in 2018 but the government toppled in 2020 due to defections.
In the fourth list, only veteran Congress leader Kantilal Bhuria has retained his seat from Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh.
In Uttar Pradesh, a state where the Congress won just one of the 80 seats, the party has made a number of changes. Of the seven candidates the party announced from the state on Saturday, only Ajay Rai has been retained from the 2019 list. In six other seats, the party has fielded new candidates. Rai has once again been pitted against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi. He fought Modi in 2014 as well.
For four seats of Maharashtra, the Congress has opted for new candidates in each constituency. This is the first time when the Congress, Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction) have formed an alliance for the Lok Sabha election.
In its first list for Tamil Nadu, the party has made only one change. Sasikanth Senthil, in-charge of the Congress’ war room, has been fielded from the reserved seat in Tiruvalluvar. Senthil has his hands full for this crucial Lok Sabha poll. After 18 years, the Congress’ war room has shifted from Gurdwara Rakabganj Road to Subramania Bharti Marg under his leadership.
Out of the remaining six seats—Krishnagiri, Karur, Cuddalore, Sivaganga, Virudhanagar and Kanyakumari-- the party has retained its five MPs-- K Gopinath in Krishnagiri, S Jothimani in Kauru, M K Vishnu Prasad from Cuddalore, Karti P Chidambaram in Sivaganga, Manickam Tagore in Virudhunagar and Vijay Vasanth in Kanyakumari.
The sixth seat Cuddalore is a new constituency for the Congress in its arrangement with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. In 2019, the Dravidian outfit contested the seat and won.
The Congress has changed both its candidates in Manipur, a state roiled by ethnic violence since May last year. Angomcha Bimol Akoijam from Inner Manipur and Alfred Kanngam S Arthur from Outer Manipur are its candidates.
Akoijam is a professor in Jawaharlal Nehru University and teaches in the School of Social Sciences. He is seen as someone with wider acceptability in the strife-torn state. Arthur is a former lawmaker in the Naga-dominated Ukhrul district.
