As the Punjab polls are expected to be held in 2017, the state Congress on Thursday released the first list of candidates.
The party has named 61 candidates including Punjab Congress Chief Captain Amarinder Singh, who will contest election Patiala and Manpreet Badal is the candidate from Bathinda Urban.
Congress releases list of 61 candidates for upcoming Legislative Assembly elections in Punjab pic.twitter.com/k7Ee73jG8w
— ANI (@ANI_news) December 15, 2016
Other prominent names were former Lok Sabha MP Vijay Inder Singla, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Charanjit Singh Channi and former CLP leader Sunil Kumar Jakhar.
Interestingly, the list has no mention of Navjot Singh Kaur and former Olympian Pargat Singh, who recently join the party.
Kaur hails from Patiala and was elected to the state legislative assembly from Amritsar East constituency in 2012 on a BJP ticket. She quit the party in October.
Pargat Singh, who had won the 2012 Assembly elections from Jalandhar (Cantt) on Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ticket, quit the party in September this year accusing party leader and Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal of betraying the trust of the people of the State.
However, the Punjab has 117 Assembly constituencies and 13 parliament constituencies.
