Jaipur: The Congress party has released its third list of candidates for Rajasthan, with 19 candidates.

Three of these candidates are Sachin Pilot loyalists: Gajraj Khatana from Bandikui, Rakesh Parek from Masuda, and Harish Meena from Deoli Uniyaar.

In the first list, the party had announced 33 candidates, and in the second list, revealed 43 candidates for the 200 legislative assembly seats. With the release of this third list, the party has declared candidates for 95 out of the 200 assembly seats.

The third list came out while the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was conducting raids on locations linked to Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra and independent MLA Om Prakash Hudla. The central agency had also summoned chief minister Ashok Gehlot's son for questioning, and the Congress and other parties had hit out at the BJP for the Union government's "goondagardi (hooliganism)".

Out of the 19 candidates on the third list, Congress has nominated 14 sitting MLAs. This also includes independent candidates Ramkesh Meena, C.L. Premi Bairwa and Pusaram Godara, who will be contesting from Gangapur, Keshoraipatan and Ratangarh, respectively.

Meena had won the Gangapur seat in the previous election. Premi came in third with 35,115 votes from Keshoraipatan in 2018. At the time, Congress's Rakesh Boyat received 65,477 votes and secured the second position, losing to BJP's Chandrakanta Meghwal, who won the seat with 72,596 votes. Pusaram Godara, who ran independently in the Ratangarh seat, lost to BJP's Abhinesh Maharshi. In this contest, Congress's Bhanwarlal Pujari received only 22,791 votes.

Dholpur MLA Shobha Rani Kushwah, who was expelled from the BJP for cross-voting in favor of the Congress candidate in last year’s Rajya Sabha election, has been given the Congress ticket from the same seat. She was officially inducted into the Congress at an election rally addressed by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Jhunjhunu on Wednesday.

Notably, Congress has chosen sitting MLA Narendra Budaniya from Taranagar to contest against BJP’s Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore. This year, Rathore has changed his seat and will be running from Taranagar instead of Churu. Rathore had previously contested and won the Taranagar seat in 2008, but since 1990, he has consistently contested and won the Churu seat.

For the Nagar seat, Congress has fielded Wajid Ali, who had previously won the seat on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket. In 2019, Ali, along with six other MLAs who won the 2018 state assembly elections on BSP tickets, joined the Congress. In 2022, Congress entrusted Ali with more responsibilities by appointing him as the chairman of the Rajasthan State Food Commission and the Bhiwadi Urban Infrastructure Development Board. In the 2018 election, Wajib Ali secured 62,644 votes, while Nem Singh from the Samajwadi Party received 37,177 votes, placing him second. The BJP secured the third position with 34,946 votes, and Congress was fourth with 31,678 votes. It will be interesting to see how many votes Congress garners this time, with Ali being their top candidate. For the Nagar seat, BJP has nominated Jawahar Singh and denied a ticket to Anita Singh, who received 34,946 votes in the previous election.

In the Karauli seat, Congress has nominated another candidate, Lakhan Singh Meena, who switched from the BSP. Lakhan won the Karauli seat with a margin of 9,562 votes against Congress’s Darshan Singh, while BJP’s Om Prakash Saini received 47,022 votes and secured the third position. BJP is yet to announce a candidate for the Karauli seat.

Rajasthan rural development Minister Ramesh Chand Meena, who is also considered a Pilot loyalist, has been nominated to contest from his constituency of Sapotra in Karauli district, which is reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

The names of two ministers, Shanti Dhariwal and Mahesh Joshi, are still missing from the third list. Dhariwal and Joshi had previously gone against the Congress high command by calling a parallel meeting on September 25 last year, in opposition to the CLP meeting organised by the party veterans.

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