Rajasthan nominee list after Rahul visit

The Congress party will announce the names of candidates for 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan after Congress president Rahul Gandhi's three public meetings during his one-day visit to Rajasthan on Tuesday.

According to Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, the party will declare the names of the candidates for the Lok Sabha election after Gandhi's visit. The Congress president will address rallies in Suratgarh city in Ganganagar district and Bundi on March 26.

"The 25 names will be a mix of veterans and fresh faces. We have made consensus over most of the seats but there are a few seats on which we are yet to decide," Pilot said.

Accordingly to party insiders, the Congress screening committee has so far submitted names on 18 seats, while the panel is yet to decide on the other seven seats. On a few seats, the party is facing difficulty.

"The party is yet to shortlist a candidate for Barmer and some other constituencies. Both Manvendra Singh and sitting MLA Harish Choudhry want to contest on the same seat," a senior Congress leader told DH.

While the party may introduce new faces on 8-10 Lok Sabha seats, a few leaders may be repeated for the second time, such as Jitendra Singh from Alwar; Namonarain Meena from Tonk-sawai Madhopur; Jyoti Mirdha from Nagaur); Raghuveer Meena from Udaipur; C P Joshi from Nathdwara; Harish Choudhary from Baytu.

However, the number of women candidates may be reduced to 3 or 4. In the last general elections, six women had contested.

However, all focus is on Rahul's visit, who is also scheduled to hold dialogues with selected booth-level workers in Jaipur.

Workers, who were given training by the party in all the 200 assembly constituencies, will attend the meeting.

Rajasthan will go to polls in two phases. In the first phase on April 29, the elections will be held on 13 seats.

The second phase will be held on May 6 on 12 seats. In 2014, the BJP made a historic win by sweeping all 25 seats in Rajasthan. However, in the 2018 bypolls, saffron party lost two seats to the Congress.