Congress candidate first list: Bhupesh Baghel to contest from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh

Congress candidate List: Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Rajnandgaon constituency, said Congress general secretary KC Venugopal at the party's press conference held on Friday.

Click to catch the latest updates on the Congress candidate's first list

The grand old party announced the first list of its Lok Sabha candidates on Friday. High-profile names like former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, and Dr Shashi Tharoor were included in the 39-member list of Congress' Lok Sabha candidates. 

The first list of the grand old party has come almost a week after the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) released its first list of candidates for the general elections in 2024. 

About Bhupesh Baghel 

The former CM of Chhattisgarh, Bhupesh Baghel was the chief of the state Congress between 2014 and 2019. He holds a strong presence in the Patan constituency from where he has won assembly elections multiple times. He has also served as a minister in Digvijaya Singh's government in Madhya Pradesh. Baghel has been elected from the Patan constituency to the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly five times over the past three decades. Last year in December, the Congress leader won the Patan assembly seat once again with a wide margin of 19,723 votes by defeating his distant nephew and BJP leader Vijay Baghel.

Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor, and other prominent names on Congress candidate's first list

The first list of the Congress candidates for Lok Sabha polls 2024 mentioned Rahul Gandhi, from Kerala's Wayanad, Shashi Tharoor from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram, former minister Tamardwaj Sahu from Mahasamund and Jyotsna Mahant from Korba seats in Chhattisgarh. In Karnataka, DK Suresh will fight elections from Bangalore Rural. Whereas, in Kerala, K Sudhakaran is from Kannur. Congress general secretary KC Venugopal will contest from Alapuzza.

The names of the Congress leaders mentioned in the list were approved by the party's Central Election Committee (CEC). The CEC's first meeting was held in the national capital on March 7.