Less than a week after the BJP announced its first list of 195 candidates, the Congress has come up with its answer in the form of 39 names, including those of Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor and Bhupesh Baghel.

Rahul Gandhi will contest from Wayanad in Kerala but it is not clear whether he will also be fielded from Amethi, like in 2019. Shashi Tharoor will fight from Thiruvananthapuram, a seat he has held for three terms, while Mr Baghel will make his Lok Sabha electoral debut from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh.

Some of the other big names on the list are Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, who will contest from Alapuzzha in Kerala – a seat he had won in 2009 – and DK Suresh, brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who has been fielded from Bengaluru Rural. 

The names have been announced primarily for some southern and northeastern states and the only outliers are Chhattisgarh and the Union Territory of Lakshadweep. At 16, the bulk of the candidates have been announced from Kerala, where the Congress is expected to leave the remaining four seats for its allies. 

Seven names have been announced from Karnataka, six from Chhattisgarh and four from Telangana. The remaining are from Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Lakshadweep.

The focus on the south is deliberate because not only does the Congress have its governments in the states of Karnataka and Telangana, but it is also the only region in the country where the BJP is relatively weak. 

The teams suspect that one of the two detenues, who was an active member of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), was part of the plot

Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed, who is in India, voiced concerns about the impact of the ‘Boycott Maldives’ campaign by Indians. He reflected on the strained India-Maldives relations and the pivot towards China by the new government led by Mohamed Muizzu. Nasheed said that relations with India will return to normal in the future as Muizzu settles down.