Cong top brass discusses candidates’ names for Maharashtra polls

New Delhi, Oct 25 (PTI) The top leadership of the Congress met at the party’s headquarters here on Friday to deliberate on the candidates’ names for the November 20 Maharashtra Assembly polls.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary, organisation, K C Venugopal were among those who attended the meeting.

Others present at the meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee included CEC members Ambika Soni, Madhusudan Mistry, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, T S Singh Deo, Amee Yajnik, P L Punia and K J George.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Maharashtra Ramesh Chennithala, state Congress chief Nana Patole and other leaders from the state, including Balasaheb Thorat, were also present.

“We, the MVA, are all set to sweep the upcoming assembly elections!” Venugopal said in a post on X after the deliberations. He also shared pictures of the CEC meeting on the microblogging platform.

The Congress announced its first list of 48 candidates for the Maharashtra polls on Thursday, fielding Patole from Sakoli, former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan from Karad South and Leader of Opposition in the outgoing Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar from Brahmapuri.

The opposition party has retained 25 incumbent MLAs in its first list of nominees.

The list came a day after the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of the Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) announced that they will contest 85 seats each in the November 20 polls. Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut later said there was a consensus on 270 of the 288 seats between the MVA constituents.

In its first list, the Congress has fielded former ministers Nitin Raut and Thorat from Nagpur North and Sangamner respectively, Jyoti Eknath Gaikwad from Dharavi, Amit Deshmukh from Latur City and Dheeraj Deshmukh from Latur Rural.