‘Tainted’ Bansal figures in Congress’ second LS list

Pawan Kumar Bansal, M. Veerappa Moily and Subodh Kant Sahay figured in the Congress’ second list, featuring 71 candidates, released here on Thursday. While P.C. Chacko and Raj Babbar shifted to safer seats in Kerala and UP, the party denied tickets to two of its sitting Lok Sabha members in Maharashtra.

The AICC’s central election committee, however, has not shortlisted nominees in Tamil Nadu and Delhi against a backdrop of reports that most of its Union ministers in Tamil Nadu do not want to fight this time. The party also kept in suspense its candidates for Varanasi, Pune and Nanded because BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is likely to fight from Varanasi while the Congress leadership is in a dilemma on whether to field family members of Suresh Kalmadi and Ashok Chavan from Pune and Nanded seats.

Aurangabad has become a complex seat because a section of local leaders are said to be pressing for the name of a person facing criminal charges, but their real intention is to help the Shiv Sena-BJP.

Mr Bansal, a former railway minister, was re-nominated from Chandigarh, brushing aside the “taint” argument. He had to resign from the Cabinet in the wake of the `10-crore cashfor-post bribery scam allegedly involving his nephew, Vijay Singla, and nine other, when Mr Bansal held the railways portfolio.

Mr Chacko will now contest from Chalkakudy in Kerala. In the last Lok Sabha he had won from Thrissur. Mr Raj Babbar, too has shifted, to Ghaziabad from Firozabad.