Ahmedabad: The Congress on Friday night released a third list of seven candidates for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections, in which it has fielded its former MLA Indranil Rajguru who recently returned to the party fold after quitting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
With this, the party has announced names of 96 candidates so far in the state, which has a 182-member Assembly.
The main opposition party has fielded Rajguru from Rajkot East from where he had won in 2012 before quitting to contest from Rajkot West in 2017 against the then-Chief Minister Vijay Rupani of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He joined the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP after quitting the Congress in April this year, only to return to the principal opposition party, saying it was the best option for defeating the BJP in Gujarat.
Among others, the party has fielded Bachhubhai Arethiya from Rapar, Tarun Gadhvi from Wadhwan, Dr Kirti Borisagar from Dhari, Haresh Vasava from Nandod, Deepak Baroth from Navsari, and Ashok Patel from Gandevi.
The grand old party replaced its sitting MLA Santokben Aarethiya on the Rapar seat. All other seats are currently held by the BJP.
With this, the Congress has announced names of 96 candidates so far as against 160 nominees declared by the BJP and 174 by the AAP.
The Congress has allotted three seats to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as part of a pre-poll alliance.
Voting to elect a new 182-member Assembly will be held on December 1 (covering 89 seats) and December 5 (covering 93 constituencies). Counting of votes will take place on December 8.
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