Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and current president Rahul Gandhi will contest Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli and Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, respectively.
The first list, finalised at a meeting of the party's cental election committee chaired by Rahul Gandhi, names 11 candidates from Uttar Pradesh and four from Gujarat.
Former Union ministers Salman Khurshid, Jitin Prasad and R P N Singh have been fielded from their traditional seats of Farrukhabad, Dhaurahra and Kushi Nagar respectively.
Former UP Congress chief Nirmal Khatri will contest from Faizabad, while Bharatsinh Solanki, the party's ex-chief of the Gujarat unit, has been fielded from the state's Anand constituency.
The party also announced that Raju Parmar from Ahmedabad West (SC); Prashant Patel from Vadodara and Ranjit Mohansinh Rathwa, Chhota Udaipur (ST), will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress is trying to revive itself in Uttar Pradesh where it faces a challenge from the BJP as well as an alliance of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.
The Election Commission will soon announce its schedule for the high-voltage Lok Sabha elections, which is likely to be spread over 7-8 phases in April-May.
Priyanka Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia were appointed AICC general secretaries for UP east and UP west respectively in January.
The announcement of dates for the elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his bid to return to power amid hectic parleys by several political parties to put a united fight against the ruling BJP, would be followed by a meeting of election observers next week for the first and second phase of polling.
This is a developing story. Check back later for details.
First Published: Mar 7, 2019 9:21 PM IST
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