Congress releases first list of 53 candidates in Uttarakhand

The Congress has released its first list of candidates for the Uttarakhand Assembly polls, and has named party's state chief Ganesh Gondiyal and legislature party leader (CLP) Preetam Singh in the list.

The Congress has given tickets to father-son duo -- Yashpal Arya and Sanjeev Arya, who defected from the BJP. They have been given tickets from Nainital and Bajpur while former Minister Nav Prabhat has been given ticket from Vikasnagar. Sumit Hridyesh has been given ticket from Haldwani.

But former Chief Minister Harish Rawat's name has not been declared in the first list and there is no clarity whether he will contest polls or not.

The candidates for the prominent seats include: Purola - S.C. Malchand; Yamunotri - Deepak Bijalwan; Gangotri - Vijaypal Singh Sajwan; Badrinath - Rajendra Singh Bhandari; Tharali - SC Dr. Jeet Ram; Karnprayag -- Mukesh Singh Negi; Kedarnath - Manoj Rawat; Rudraprayag - Pradeep Thapliyal; Ghanshali - SC Dhani Lal Shah; Deoprayag - Mantri Prasad Naithani; Pratapnagar - Vikram Singh Negi; Pirankaliyar - Mohd Furkan Ahmad; Manglore - Qazi Mohd Nizamuddin.