Cong clears 10 more LS candidates; fields Karti Chidambaram from Sivaganga

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday released its ninth list of 10 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, fielding former finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti from Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu.

Karti Chidambaram is facing trial in corruption cases, including the INX media money laundering case. The Congress list contains four candidates from Maharashtra, three from Bihar and one each in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir. Former NCP leader Tariq Anwar was nominated by the party for the Katihar Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, which he currently represents.

The party also fielded its former general secretary B K Hariprasad from the Bangalore South constituency in Karnataka. The others whose names have been cleared by the party's central election committee include Mohammed Javed from Kishanganj and Uday Singh alias Pappu Singh from Purnia in Bihar and Haji Farooq Mir from Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir. Besides, the party has fielded Hidayat Patel from Akola, Kishor Uttamrao Gajbhiye from Ramtek-SC and Subhash Wankhede from Hingoli in Maharashtra.

The Congress replaced its candidate from Chandrapur in Maharashtra and fielded Suresh Dhanorkar, in place of Vinayak Bangade. With this the party has fielded a total of 227 candidates so far. Incidently, a Delhi court has extended till March 25 the interim protection to Karti from his arrest as well as that of former Union minister P Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis scam cases filed by the CBI and the ED.