Senior Congress leaders reluctant to contest polls

• Congress V-P Rahul wants them to enter fray
• Jaipal Reddy only Minister who is keen to contest
• Bansal likely to get ticket, Kalmadi may be dropped
• Party defends Rahul's 'Hitler' jibe at Narendra Modi

New Delhi: Almost all the senior Union Ministers are reluctant to contest the Lok Sabha polls due to the Modi wave. Finance Minister P Chidambaram tops the list, followed by I&B Minister Manish Tewari, Defence Minister A K Antony, Shipping Minister G K Vasan and Women & Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath, besides others.

Interestingly, Science & Technology Minister S Jaipal Reddy is the only Cabinet Minister, who is keen to contest, enthused by the birth of Telangana, while Ministers like Beni Prasad Verma, RPN Singh, Jitendra Singh and Salman Khurshid are nervous to contest this time.

Ministers like Sushil Kumar Shinde, Srikant Jena and Sachin Pilot would be jumping into the electoral fray just to keep Congress Vice-President Rahul in good humour. Rahul Gandhi had asked all the senior leaders to contest this time, given the poll prediction of Congress securing the worst-ever tally in these elections.

While P Chidambaram from the Sivaganga seat in Tamil Nadu is all set to lose the elections, given the desertion by its alliance partner,the DMK, which wants to go it alone, Manish Tewari is nervous to contest from Ludhiana, given the anti-Sikh sentiments against the party. If that was not all, he is annoyed that the party may give a nod to the tainted former Railways Minister Pawan Bansal to contest from the Chandigarh seat. From Ludhiana, Manish Tewari faces a threat from AAP candidate H S Phoolka, a Supreme Court lawyer, who has fought cases for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims.

The Congress is likely to re-nominate former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal from Chandigarh, in a move that signals his political rehabilitation. But former Commonwealth Games organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, who represents Pune in the Lok Sabha, is not likely to be as lucky. The party has, sources said, made up its mind to deny a ticket to him, or his wife Meera.

A three-term Lok Sabha member, Mr Bansal, 65, was forced to resign from the Union Cabinet in May after his nephew Vijay Singla was arrested for allegedly accepting bribe to facilitate a plum posting for a senior official in the Railways, which his uncle headed. A CBI probe, however, gave a clean chit to Mr Bansal in July, arguing that there was no evidence to link him with the bribery scandal. "It's unfair to call Mr Bansal tainted," observed Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala.

The party, however, appears to have rebuffed efforts by Mr Kalmadi to secure a party ticket, either for himself or for his wife. As chairman of the Commonwealth Games organizing committee, the Pune MP found himself in the centre of a mega corruption scandal, and was arrested by the CBI in April 2011. He is presently out on bail.

The election committee, sources pointed out, has not yet taken a call on offering the Nanded seat to former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan. He had to step down from his post in 2010 after it was revealed that three of his relatives had bought flats in Adarsh Housing Society.

In light of Rahul Gandhi's remarks comparing Narendra Modi to Adolf Hitler, Congress suggested it would be foolhardy not to hold the Gujarat Chief Minister responsible for the 2002 riots, which saw the killing of some 3,000 people, as part of a "planned conspiracy".