Congress may rely on sitting MLAs to win it a fourth term in the capital,ongress, BJP,Delhi Congress
- Details
- Category: Delhi political News
- Last Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2015 20:50
Congress may rely on sitting MLAs to win it a fourth term in the capital.
NEW DELHI: The Congress will bank on its sitting MLAs to win it a fourth term in the capital. The consensus on most names took shape in the Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) chaired by the party high command, Sonia Gandhi, on Monday.
While the final list is likely to be delivered only next week, after Diwali, a consensus emerged on around 30 of the 43 seats that are with the party. For the remaining 27 seats that are with the opposition, a panel of candidates is being prepared for the CEC's scrutiny.
Sources say the party will find it difficult to leave out three of its MLAs who have criminal backgrounds. Sacrificing them will make them dissidents and a potential danger at a time when Congress faces anti-incumbency and a new rival in the form of Aam Aadmi Party.
The MLAs in question are Asif Mohd from Okhla, Dayanand Chandela from Rajouri Garden and Jaswant Rana from Narela. All of them are likely to be put through the scanner before the CEC takes a final call.
Opinion poll | Candidtate list | Election Schedule | Delhi News | National News .
Meanwhile, the Congress screening committee for Delhi will meet later this week to prepare a panel of prospective candidates for the remaining 27 seats. The panel is likely to have three or more names.
The six-member screening committee comprising chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president J P Agarwal, AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmad, MPs V Narayanasamy, Bubhansh Kalita and Kuljeet Singh Nagra, presented a document on seats with the party.
Emerging from the meeting, Dikshit, who has been making a strong pitch for all her sitting MLAs, was cautious. "There were discussions and queries have been sought from us. We will give it but names have neither been decided nor dropped," Dikshit told TOI. DPCC chief JP Agarwal, too, maintained that discussions were on and a list was likely to be declared next week.
That there is hectic lobbying on for tickets to seats occupied by sitting MLAs emerged soon after the CEC meeting ended. There were reports about Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi expressing reservations on certain seats, based on an internal survey.
Names of a dozen sitting MLAs, including two ministers-Kiran Walia from Malviya Nagar and Ramakant Goswami from Rajendra Nagar-besides the speaker, Yoganand Shastri from Mehrauli, were said to have been put in a list of pending names in keeping with the findings of an internal survey carried out at Rahul's instance. However, the DPCC chief and the Delhi CM denied on record that any such decision on putting names on a pending list had been made.
source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/