New Delhi: Ahead of the Gujarat Assembly elections, the Congress on Wednesday released its final list of 37 candidates, fielding former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela's son Mahendrasinh Vaghela from the Bayad constituency, news agency PTI reported.
With the declaration of the seventh list, the grand old party has announced 179 candidates for the elections to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly.
It is to be noted that the seventh list of 37 candidates included Mahendrasinh Vaghela from Bayad, Ramesh Koli from Sanand, Chirag Patel from Khambhat, Harshadbhai Ninama from Dahod (ST) and Mahesh Patel from Palanpur.
As per PTI sources, the list released on Wednesday was the last and final one. The Congress has an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for the assembly elections and the Sharad Pawar-led party is set to contest on three seats.
Notably, Mahendrasinh Vaghela had joined the party last month. The 58-year-old former MLA was a Congress legislator from Bayad in north Gujarat between 2012 and 2017, and had quit the party in August 2017, a few months before the Assembly elections, and later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
It is to be noted that the Congress had released its first list with the names of 43 candidates on November 4. On November 10, it came out with another list of 46 candidates. The Congress released a list of seven candidates last Friday, but one was a replacement for the earlier announced candidate.
The fourth list of nine candidates was released on Saturday.
The party then released its fifth list on Sunday with five candidates and one replacement -- Manhar Patel from Botad in place of Ramesh Mer. Later, it released a list of 33 candidates.
Notably, the Gujarat assembly elections will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5. The counting of votes will take place on December 8.