Congress Sets Up State Election, Political Affairs Committees In UP Ahead Of LS Polls

Congress set up political affairs committee and state election panel in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Congress on Friday formed two committees in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to take a call on the candidates who would contest elections from the state. The two committees are called the Political Affairs Committee and Pradesh Election Panel. Apart from deciding on the Lok Sabha candidates, the committees will reportedly also voice party's stand on key issues and plan for the campaign.

The Political Affairs Committee will be convened by Avinash Pande, AICC in-charge for UP. The committee will have 40 members including heads of all frontal organisations of UP along with AICC secretaries in charge of UP. The members include Ajay Rai, Aradhana Misra, Pramod Tiwari, Mohsina Kidwai, Nirmal Khatri, Salman Khurshid, Rajiv Shukla, P L Punia, Virendra Chaudhary and Rashid Alvi, among others.

The Pradesh (state) Election Committee will be chaired by Ajay Rai and will have 39 members with heads of frontal organisations in UPCC as its ex-officio members. The members of the Pradesh Committee include Aradhana Misra, Mohsina Kidwai, Salman Khurshid and Nirmal Khatri as its members, among others.

Congress Releases First List Of 39 Candidates

Congress on Friday announced a list of the first 39 candidates from Kerala for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will contest the Lok Sabha polls from Kerala's Wayanad once again. 

Former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel has been fielded from the Rajnandgaon seat in Chhattisgarh, Shashi Tharoor renominated from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal from Alappuzha (Kerala). 

The party however denied a ticket to sitting MP T N Prathapan from the Thrissur constituency. Venugopal will contest from the lone seat that the Congress lost last time. 

Venugopal stated that the first list has 15 general category candidates and 24 candidates from the SC, ST, OBC, and other minority categories. However, there were only three women candidates on the list. Venugopal also stated that there are 12 candidates aged below 50 years and eight aged between 50-60 years. There are seven candidates aged between 71-76 years and 12 between 61-70 years.