The Congress election committee, in its very first meeting late last evening, has finalised most candidates for six of ten states it was considering. “A formal announcement will be made soon,” said senior party leader KC Venugopal when the meeting finished close to midnight.

“We finalised seats from Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Lakshadweep… The procedure is going on, formal announcement will be made very soon,” Mr Venugopal told reporters.

Sources said Rahul Gandhi will contest again from his seat Wayanad in Kerala, former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel from Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon and Jyotsna Mahant from Korba. All the key leaders from Chhattisgarh will be in the fray.

The party will also contest 16 of the 20 seats from Kerala and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor will be among the candidates, sources said.

In Karnataka, the Congress will not field state ministers, sources said, amid reports that most ministers are unwilling to contest the national elections. Two ministers have gone public with their reservations. Only one minister could be in the running if he decides to contest, sources said.

Among the candidates from the state is state party chief DK Shivakumar’s brother, party MP DK Suresh. No decision has been taken on Kalburgi, the seat of Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

The committee will meet again on Monday.

The list that was to be discussed today included Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Sikkim and Lakshadweep. The party has left the northeast for the next round.

With the general elections due in summer, the finalisation of candidates has started even though the party is yet to resolve the seat-sharing issue in two crucial states – Maharashtra and Bengal — which together account for 90 seats.

Talks with Maha Vikas Aghadi allies for the 48 seats in Maharashtra is still in progress. In Bengal, the Congress is trying to placate Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who has put her INDIA membership on hold, miffed with the way the seat sharing process was going.

President Joe Biden opened his State of the Union speech Thursday with a fiery attack on his “dangerous” November presidential election rival Donald Trump, warning that US democracy is under “assault.”

In the dramatic start to the speech, Biden said he wanted to “wake up the Congress and alert the American people” to the danger.

Biden said “freedom and democracy” were “under assault.”

Then homing in on Trump, he said the Republican was “bowing down” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and vowed to cheers from Democrats: “I will not bow down.”

In what was one of the most important speeches of his long political career, the 81-year-old Democrat aimed to ease concerns about his age, painting himself as the only alternative to an anti-democratic Trump in November’s presidential election.

He arrived on the floor of the Capitol to extended cheers from supporters and chants of “four more years.”

But in a sign of the multiple challenges facing Biden — including from the Democratic left — protesters against his support for Israel’s war on Hamas tried to block the motorcade from the White House to Congress.

The annual set-piece presidential speech, which in past years has lasted from around an hour to more than 90 minutes, was a chance for Biden to lay out his campaign platform as the battle to keep Trump from staging a shock comeback begins in  earnest.

Biden was not expected to mention Trump’s name, but in excerpts released by the White House earlier, he took a clear dig at the 77-year-old Republican, who has refused to accept his 2020 election defeat and now narrowly leads Biden in the polls.

“My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy,” Biden said in the excerpts. “Now some other people my age, see a different story: an American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution. That’s not me.”

Biden routinely paints Trump — who was impeached twice as president and faces multiple criminal indictments, including over the January 2021 assault on the Capitol — as a threat to the survival of US democracy.

‘Greatest comeback’

In his speech, Biden slammed Republican abortion opponents, saying they have “no clue about the power of women in America,” in what Democrats see as a key vote-winning issue.

And he touted the booming US economy, even if Americans are still unhappy with high prices and polls show many saying their economic fortunes have not improved.

Biden said that “in thousands of cities and towns the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.”

The Democrat was also expected to take on the war in Gaza and fury among leftists and the Arab-American community over his strong support for Israel’s war against Hamas.

He was to announce during the speech that he has ordered the US military to set up a port on Gaza’s coast to bring in more aid, reflecting the acute political pressure from many in his own party.

Ahead of the speech, Trump accused Biden of “horrific devastation” during his three years so far in office, focusing on the record numbers of migrants crossing the Mexican border.

“It’s time to tell Crooked Joe Biden — you’re fired,” Trump said in a video “prebuttal”, using the catchphrase of his former TV reality show “The Apprentice.”

Age concerns

For the millions of Americans tuning in to the spectacle, much of the interest will be not just what Biden says in the joint session of Congress, but how whether he avoids serious verbal — or even physical — stumbles.

Republican rightwingers like Marjorie Taylor Greene were expected to heckle Biden, as they did last year.

In line with tradition, First Lady Jill Biden will host a number of guests chosen to highlight the White House’s priorities. 

This year they include a Texan woman forced to leave the state for an abortion, a woman whose IVF treatment was halted by an Alabama court ruling, and the prime minister of Sweden, which became NATO newest member on Thursday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu held talks with Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda on Thursday, rekindling speculation about a potential alliance between the two parties for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh. This meeting marks the second such interaction between Mr Naidu and Mr Shah in as many months.

Another round of talks between TDP and BJP will take place in Delhi today while an official announcement regarding the alliance is anticipated within the next day or two.

The TDP was a crucial part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) until 2018, when Mr Naidu, then the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, decided to exit over concerns regarding financial support for the state. Now, as elections loom on the horizon, both parties appear open to the idea of joining forces, provided they can reach a mutually agreeable seat-sharing arrangement.

According to sources, the key focus of the discussions revolved around the potential alliance and the intricacies of seat distribution. While both parties express a willingness to collaborate, the final decision hinges on resolving differences over the number of seats each party would contest. 

Andhra Pradesh boasts 25 Lok Sabha and 175 Assembly seats, and the BJP is reportedly keen on contesting eight to ten parliamentary constituencies. However, the BJP might settle for five to six Lok Sabha seats if an alliance materialises, with the  Pawan Kalyan-led Jana Sena Party (JSP) contesting three and the TDP retaining the remainder.

BJP is reportedly seeking key constituencies including Vizag, Vijayawada, Araku, Rajampet, Rajahmundry, Tirupati, and one additional location. It is projected that they may secure 4-6 seats, while Jana Sena might secure three seats, including Machilipatnam for Balashowree. 

The JSP, a former NDA member, has already joined hands with the TDP and is actively urging the BJP to follow suit. Mr Kalyan himself participated in the meeting with Mr Shah. The JSP has already been allotted three Lok Sabha and 24 Assembly seats. 

The BJP, eyeing a decisive victory in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, has been working towards expanding the NDA. With a target of winning 370 seats on its own and 400 with allies, the party sees partnering with regional parties aligned with its agenda as crucial for success. Besides Andhra Pradesh, the BJP is also expected to announce a poll pact with the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha.