Congress party today released first list of 194 candidates for upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Party President Sonia Gandhi ,Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Union Minister Kamal Nath and Industrialist Naveen Jindal figure in the list. Mrs Gandhi will contest from Rae Baraeli and Rahul Gandhi from Amethi which are their present Parliamentary Constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. Mrs Meira Kumar will contest from Sasaram in Bihar and Kamal Nath from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh.

Bhojpuri film star Ravi Kishen has been fielded from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, Oriya actors Aparajita Mohanty from Cuttack and Bijay Mohanty from Bhubaneswar.

The nominees also include cricketer Mohammed Kaif from Phulpur , Atal Bihari Vajpayee's niece Karuna Shukla from Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh while UIDAI chief Nandan Nilekani is being fielded from Bangalore South. In the first list , the party finalised 50 candidates for Uttar Pradesh, 22 for Madhya Pradesh, 17 for West Bengal, 14 for Karnataka and 13 for Maharashtra and 10 each for Assam and Bihar. The list includes 9 candidates each for Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat.