Congress releases another list, no candidate announcement for Amethi, Raebareli

Four candidates have been named in the fresh list and they include actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar from the Gurgaon constituency and former Union Minister Anand Sharma from the Kangra constituency in Himachal Pradesh.

Babbar will contest against BJP veteran and Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh.

With the announcement of his candidature, the Congress has revealed the names of all nine candidates it is fielding from Haryana, where the tenth Lok Sabha seat is being contested by its INDIA ally, the Aam Aadmi Party.

Sharma, who is making his Lok Sabha election debut, is up against the BJP's Rajeev Bhardwaj, a former chairman of the Kangra Central Cooperative (KCC) Bank.

Former MLA Satpal Raizada has been fielded from the Hamirpur constituency in Himachal Pradesh where he will be facing Union Minister Anurag Thakur, who has won from there four times.

The seat was also held by Thakur's father and former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.

In Maharashtra, where the battle is between the Congress-NCP (Sharad Pawar Faction)-Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) and the BJP-NCP (Ajit Pawar faction)-Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction), the party has pitted Bhushan Patil, the vice president of its Mumbai unit, against Lok Sabha election debutant and Union Minister Piyush Goyal.

Meanwhile, the Amethi unit of Congress, tired of waiting for the candidate announcement, is holding a protest at the Uttar Pradesh constituency that has enjoyed VIP status for decades.

Congress workers sat on a protest outside the party office raising slogans of "Amethi mange Gandhi parivar (Amethi demands the Gandhi family)".

The Congress is yet to announce candidates for the two prestigious seats from UP- Amethi and Raebareli.

Election for both seats is due on May 20 in the fifth phase.

According to reports, Rahul Gandhi may be interested in contesting from Amethi beside the Wayanad constituency. A victory would mean that he might have to surrender the Kerala seat, which sent him to the Lok Sabha in 2019.

Asked about the matter, the protesting Congress workers from Amethi said while reports are possible, they have "full faith that the Gandhi family will contest from Amethi".

His sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is expected to step into her mother's shoes in Raebareli. However, it is still unsure whether she will take a plunge into electoral politics.

Since 2014, there has been expectation that she would contest from Varanasi against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 and later from Uttar Pradesh after she was made the general secretary in charge of the state.