The Congress Thursday announced its first list of 125 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, which includes Asha Singh, the mother of the Unnao rape victim.
There are 50 women on the list.
From Unnao, Asha Singh will be contesting the elections, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra announced in a virtual press conference.
In 2019, expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar was convicted for the rape of a teenaged Dalit girl in Unnao in 2017 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The other candidates include Congress leader Sadaf Jafar, who was in jail in connection with the anti-CAA protest in the state, Poonam Pandey, an Asha worker who was roughed up by the police while trying to meet UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Shahjahanpur in November last year, and Ramraj Gond, who had spearheaded the Gond tribals’ legal battle over land in Umbha village in Sonbhadra.
“Out of the total 125 candidates, 40 per cent are women and 40 per cent are the youth. With this historic initiative, we hope to bring in a new kind of politics in the state,” Gandhi said.
