No room for Rahul team in Cong list

The Congress has declared 118 of 288 possible candidates and denied tickets only to six sitting MLAs among these 118 seats.

The Congress appears to have given Rahul Gandhi’s youth team the snub, opting instead to field old-timers. It has chosen to retain most sitting legislators, although it trailed in almost 75 per cent of the assembly segments in the Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress has declared 118 of 288 possible candidates and denied tickets only to six sitting MLAs among these 118 seats. The list includes candidates for 73 of the 82 seats it currently holds. Among those renominated is Appasaheb S R Patil, 92, reportedly because of a feud within his family over who should “succeed” him. Other senior legislators in the list include Annie Shekhar and Jagannath Shetty — the latter from Sion Koliwada for which a Youth Congress leader was considered but rejected at the last moment after veterans questioned his win nability.

So far, the party has given a ticket to only one Youth Congress office-bearer, state unit vice president Satyajit Sudhir Tambe Patil. Patil is a nephew of minister Balasaheb Thorat, who will contest Sangamner.

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Sitting party legislators not in the list are Yogesh Bhoye (Sakri), Dinanath Padole (Nagpur South), Anil Bawankar (Tumsar), Namdeo Usendi (Gadchiroli), Vaijyanath Shinde (Latur City), and Vilaskaka Patil Undalkar (Karad South). Party sources cited local unrest against Bhoye, Bawankar, and Shinde, while Usendi lost in the Lok Sabha polls. The party has replaced Padole with former minister Satish Chaturvedi, and Undalkar with Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.

Santosh Tarphe will contest from Kalmanuri, earlier represented by Rahul Gandhi’s close aide Rajeev Satav, now a Lok Sabha member. Former chief minister Shivajirao Patil Nilengekar’s seat, Nilanga, has gone to his son Ashok.

The other interesting aspect of the list is that despite the party’s stated commitment to giving more representation to women, only eight women made it to the first list of 118. Of these four are sitting legislators, meaning that the first list includes only four new female faces.

The nine Congress-held seats for which the party is yet to name candidates are Amravati, Warora, Arni, Yavatmal, Bhokar, Paithan, Sinnar, Kandivali East, and Panvel.

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