Congress declares 20 more candidates, retains sitting MPs in Punjab

The Congress on Tuesday night declared 20 more Lok Sabha candidates retaining some of its sitting MPs in Punjab including Sunil Jakhar from Gurdaspur, Gurjit Singh Aujla from Amritsar, Ravneet Singh Bittu from Ludhiana and Santokh Singh Chaudhary from Jalandhar.

The party has also given tickets to former MPs Preneet Kaur from Patiala and Pawan Kumar Bansal from Chandigarh.

The party has fielded Rajkumar Chabbewal from Hoshiarpur.

Former Union Minister Subodh Kant Sahay would contest from Jharkhand capital Ranchi.

In Himachal Pradesh, the Congress has fielded Pawan Kajal from Kangra.
 

The list includes four candidates from Gujarat, six from Punjab, two each from Odisha and Karnataka, three from Jharkhand and one each from Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

For the hot seat of Gandhinagar, from where Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah is fighting his first Lok Sabha battle, sitting MLA C.J. Chavda has been selected.

Mulubhai Kandoriya will be the candidate from Jamnagar seat after the Supreme Court rejected Hardik Patel's plea seeking an urgent hearing to stay his conviction in a rioting case.

With today's list, the total number of candidates declared by the Congress so far has gone up to 345.