The Congress party, on 8 March 2014, released its first list of 194 nominees including 28 women candidates for the ensuing 16th Lok Sabha elections, slated to be held between 7 April and 12 May 2014.
The party's central election committee, headed by Sonia Gandhi, has finalised the names. Prominent names like Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul Gandhi, senior leaders from Karnataka including Mallikarjun Kharge, Dharam Singh and Muniyappa have been figured in the list of candidates.
Sonia Gandhi will contest from Rae Bareli, Rahul Gandhi from Amethi parliament constituency and foreign minister Salman Khurshid from Farukkhabad.
Most of the sitting MPs have been re-nominated for the Lok Sabha polls. According to party leaders, 35 per cent of the candidates in list are below the age of 50 and 15 percent candidates are women.
The first list includes several new faces including Unique Identification Authority of India chief Nandan Nilekani, Cricketer Mohammed Kaif, Atal Bihari Vajpayee's niece Karuna Shukla, Bhojpuri filmstar Ravi Kishen, Justice Hanumanthappa from Bellary, Oriya actors Aparajita Mohanty and Bijay Mohanty.
Ravi Kishen will contest from Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, Aparajita Mohanty from Cuttack, Bijay Mohanty from Bhubaneshwar, Nilekani from Bangalore South, Karuna Shukla from Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and cricketer Mahammed Kaif from Phulpur, a constituency in Uttar Pradesh from where Jawaharlal Nehru represented the Parliament.
The first list has names of one candidate from Andaman and Nicobar, 10 from Assam, 10 from Bihar, nine from Chhattisgarh, one from Dadra Nagar Haveli, nine from Gujarat, seven from Haryana, six from Jhar Khand, 14 from Karnataka, 22 from Madhya Pradesh, 13 from Maharashtra, two from Manipur, one from Meghalaya, one from Mizoram, nine from Odisha, four from Punjab, six from Rajasthan, 2 from Tripura, 50 from Uttar Pradesh and 17 from West Bengal.
To check the complete list of candidates, click HERE.
