At a meeting of the Congress’s highest decision-making body in 2019, Rahul Gandhi lashed out at a group of veteran leaders before stepping down as the party chief. Gandhi accused them of focusing more on the poll campaign of their children and ignoring the party’s larger interests as the Congress faced a second successive national poll defeat.

The party’s second list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls this summer announced on Tuesday showed that not much has changed.Sons of former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and former Union minister Kamal Nath, Vaibhav Gehlot, and Nakul Nath, were among the 43 candidates announced on Tuesday.

Focus on marginalised groups

The second list of candidates shows the party remains focussed on Scheduled Castes, Schedule Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and youth. Candidates from these sections account for over three-fourths of the party’s nominees.

The Congress on Tuesday named candidates for 12 of the 14 seats in Assam, seven of 26 constituencies in Gujarat, 10 of the 29 segments in Madhya Pradesh, 10 of the 25 seats in Rajasthan, and three of the five constituencies in Uttarakhand. The party has also named the lone candidate from Daman & Diu.

The Congress announced 39 candidates last week.

Turncoats in Congress

Member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Kaswan was named as Congress’s candidate from Churu on Tuesday a day after he quit the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2019, Udit Raj, the then Lok Sabha MP from North West Delhi, joined the Congress when the BJP denied him a ticket. BJP veteran Jagdish Shettar joined the Congress in the run-up to the Karnataka election last year. He was given a ticket before he returned to the BJP.

Thackeray offer to Gadkari

Union minister Nitin Gadkari, meanwhile, rejected Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray’s offer for a ticket as “immature and ridiculous”. Thackeray made the offer after Gadkari’s name did not feature on the BJP’s first list of candidates.

Disapproval over CAA

A chorus of disapproval over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) continued with Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Tuesday calling it completely unwarranted. He added the contentious law will not be implemented in his state. “There is not going to be any use or benefits of to the CAA, which only paves the way for creating divisions among the Indian people.” He called for repealing the law. Kerala chief minister Pinarai Vijayan has taken a similar stance on the issue even as state governments have no jurisdiction over citizenship.