Rajasthan polls: Congress nominates 25 women, 14 Muslim candidates for polls

JAIPUR: The Congress on Saturday released its second list of 32 candidates for the state assembly elections scheduled for December 7. The opposition party had already released a list of 152 candidates on Thursday. It is yet to name candidates for the remaining 16 assembly seats before the nominations close on November 19.

Among the 184 candidates fielded so far, the Congress has given tickets to 25 women candidates—the party’s highest ever in the state polls.Four women candidates have been nominated from Alwar district alone that has 11 assembly seats. The party is likely to leave one or two seats in the district for its grand alliance partners, for which talks are still on. So far, Congress has nominated 14 Muslim candidates as compared to zero by the BJP.
Besides the surprise inclusion of Manvendra Singh for Jhalrapatan seat, the Congress second list had names of present legislator and former Bharatpur royal Vishvendra Singh, who has been repeated from Deeg-Kumher in Bharatpur.
In Jaipur, the party has dropped former cabinet minister Brij Kishore Sharma and nominated the city’s former Lok Sabha MP Mahesh Joshi from Hawa Mahal constituency. While Congress has repeated Archana Sharma, the party’s media chairperson, from city’s Malviya Nagar seat, it has fielded two new faces here—Rafeeq Khan from Adarsh Nagar and Pushpendra Bhardwaj from Sanganer.
Khan, a businessman, has been chosen over seniors Ashq Ali Tak and Rajiv Arora. Bhardwaj, a former student leader, would face Ghanshyam Tiwari, the BJP rebel who has filed nomination as candidate of the Bharat Vahini Party that he launched recently. The BJP is yet to nominate its candidate for the Sanganer seat.
Former minister Babu Lal Nagar, against whom appeal has been filed in the high court upon his acquittal in a rape case, has been denied ticket from Jaipur district’s Dudu seat, which is reserved the SC community. The party has given chance to Ritesh Bairwa, while Nagar has protested.
Former ministers Ramlal Jat (Mandal, Bhilwara), Hari Mohan Sharma (Bundi) and Gurmeet Singh Kunner (Karanpur, Sriganganagar) too have been accommodated. Rohit Vohra from Rajakhera (Dholpur), Vidyadhar Chaudhary from Phulera (Jaipur), and Vijaypal Mirdha from Degana (Nagaur), are sons of former ministers.