Lok Sabha polls: Congress to field 8 to 10 new faces in Rajasthan

Congress has entered into the last leg of finalising party candidates in Rajasthan for the Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in two phases in the state. The party is all set to introduce new faces on eight to 10 seats.

The party on Sunday held its screening committee meeting which was chaired by AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal at 15, Gurudwara Rakabganj Road, the “Congress war room”. Present in the meeting were AICC state party in-charge Avinash Pande, secretaries Kazi Nizamuddin, Devendra Yadav, Vivek Bansal and Tarun Kumar, chief minister Ashok Gehlot and state party chief Sachin Pilot.

The committee started the marathon sessions from 11.30 am, and separately, held meetings zone-wise with AICC secretary in-charges.

A senior Congress leader, who is working closely with the developments, said, “The Congress by and large unanimously has decided party candidates on all 25 seats and now just some more information is being discussed.”

He said the party will be fielding new faces on eight to 10 seats and will not “disturb much the sitting MLAs as the party do not have a comfortable majority in the state assembly”. “The names of the party candidates will be announced after approval from central election committee meeting, likely to be held after Holi,” he said.

Sources claimed that on nearly a dozen seats, such as Sikar, Alwar, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Udiapur, Nagaur, Chittorgarh, Jodhpur, Jhalawar-Baran, Barmer and Pali etc, names have been finalised. The party will be fielding seasoned leaders such as Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, Namonarayan Meena, Jyoti Mirdha, Manvendra Singh, Badri Jakhad, Raghveer Meena, Gopal Singh Idwa and Subhash Mehriya.

The new faces are likely to be fielded from seats such as Jodhpur, Churu, Ajmer, Sri Ganganagar, Bharatpur, Jalore, Rajsamand, Jaipur-rural and Kota, claimed sources.

Of the 25 candidates the party fielded in 2014 LS polls, nine have been elected to state assembly in 2018 elections and six of them — Master Bhanawar Lal Meghwal, Sachin Pilot, Harish Choudhary, Udailal Anjana, Ashok Chandna and Pramod Jain — are ministers in Gehlot government. Of rest three, CP Joshi is the Speaker in the assembly, Mahesh Joshi (chief whip) and Namonarayan Meena is an MLA.

The Congress in 2014 LS polls had repeated faces on around a dozen seats, while new faces were introduced at the rest. In last two LS elections, the party gave five seats to women candidates (of which three won in 2009: Nagaur, Jodhpur and Chittorgarh), which increased to six in 2014.

A state party office bearer said on an average this time around 30 candidates sought tickets from each Lok Sabha seat, and the number were higher on reserved seats.

First Published: Mar 18, 2019 14:42 IST