New Delhi: On Thursday, the Congress released the first list of 15 candidates for Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Ending the suspense over whether UPA chairperson will continue to remain in active politics, the Congress today announced her as the candidate for Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli. Congress President Rahul Gandhi will contest from his parliamentary constituency Amethi, the release said. Interestingly, the first list of candidates did not contain Priyanka Gandhi's name, who made her political debut recently and was appointed as the AICC General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh in January this year, ahead of the general elections. Notably, Rae Bareli and Amethi are the only constituencies that Congress had won in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
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The list of candidates released by Congress includes 11 from Uttar Pradesh and four from Gujarat. Meanwhile, the four Congress candidates from Gujarat are Raju Parmar from Ahmedabad West, Bharatsinh M Solanki from Anand, Prashant Patel from Vadodara and Ranjit Mohansinh Rathwa from Chhota Udaipur.
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Meanwhile, former ministers Salman Khurshid, Jitin Prasad and RPN Singh also made the cut in the first list from seats in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming elections. While Khurshid will contest from Farrukhabad, Jitin Prasad will fight the elections from Dhaurahra and RPN Singh from Kushi Nagar. Congress' former chief of the Gujarat Unit, Bharatsinh Solanki, has been fielded from Gujarat's Anand and former UP Congress president Nirmal Khatri will contest from Faizabad, as per the list released by the Congress.