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Rao missing from Congress's second list

The Congress today released its second list of 48 Lok Sabha candidates from six states.

The list did not include former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao's name, strengthening rumours that he may be denied a ticket from Behrampur in Orissa.

Among those included in the list are former Union ministers A B A Ghani Khan Choudhary, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi and S S Ahluwalia.

The party has approved 35 candidates in West Bengal, seven in Punjab, two in Goa, one each in Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya and in the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

In Goa, former chief minister Ravi Naik has been given the Panaji seat while Francisco Sardinha has been nominated from the Marmgao constituency.

Former Mizoram governor P R Kyndiah has been asked to contest the election from Shillong in Meghalaya.

The party has also released its nominees for the 60-member Meghalaya assembly and five for the Manipur assembly by-election.

In West Bengal, Ghani Khan Choudhary will contest from his Malda borough while Dasmunshi has been shifted to Raiganj from Howrah.

Ahluwalia will be the party nominee from Asansol. He is currently a Rajya Sabha member from Bihar.

Former minister Debi Prasad Pal will contest the Calcutta North West seat once again.

Umrao Singh has been pitted against Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral in Jalandhar in Punjab. Captain Amarinder Singh -- the former maharaja of Patiala who left the Congress in June 1984, protesting against Operation Bluestar and later returned to the party -- will be its nominee for Patiala while Jagmeet Singh Brar will contest the Faridkot seat held by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's son Sukhbir Singh.

Meanwhile, Narasimha Rao's confidant B P Maurya has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Maurya, who was a Congress general secretary till November 1996, was welcomed into the saffron party by its president Lal Kishinchand Advani and general secretary Pramod Mahajan.

Two more Congress members of the dissolved Lok Sabha -- Mohan Delkar and Gopal Tandel -- joined the BJP today. Delkar was the party's Dadra and Nagar Haveli unit chief. Tandel represented Daman and Diu.

UNI

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