Congress chair person Sonia Gandhi holds meeting, but no candidates yet
- Details
- Category: Rajasthan News
- Last Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2015 20:50
Congress chair person Sonia Gandhi holds meeting, but no candidates yet.
JAIPUR: The Congress' chief election committee (CEC) under party chief Sonia Gandhi met in New Delhi to finalize candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in five states on Monday.
Sources said the committee discussed the issues related to candidates for Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan elections only on Monday and concluded with a note to meet again on October 31.
Opinion poll | Candidtate list | Election Schedule | National News .
The much awaited list of party candidates for the elections slated on December 1 appeared unlikely to be announced on Monday. Sources said the differences over finalising and strictly implementing the candidate selection criteria was holding back the state's list.
After the CEC meeting, Congress senior leaders involved with the assembly elections in the state held meetings, which were attended by screening committee head Ajay Maken and AICC general secretary in-charge Gurudas Kamat. Former minister and Congress working committee (CWC) member C P Joshi was actively involved in these meetings.
Joshi getting a say in the candidate selections led to talks of his return to the state politics with the 2013 elections. The party might nominate Joshi back from the Nathdwara assembly seat, which he famously lost by a single vote in 2008.
Earlier, the CEC presided by Sonia was attended by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, chief minister Ashok Gehlot, AICC general secretaries Maken and Kamat, PCC chief Chandrabhan and CEC member and union minister Girija Vyas. After the meeting, party in-charge for Rajasthan, Kamat told reporters that a final decision on election candidates was yet to be taken. "The first list will not be released today (Monday)," he said.
Kamat said the committee mostly concentrated on finalising guidelines for candidate selections and ticket distributions. Contentious issues like considering candidates who lost the past two elections in a row and those who lost by big margins (20,000 and above) as well about giving Congress tickets to ex-BSP MLAs were discussed. The Congress leader added, "CEC will meet again on October 31."
Congress state president Chandrabhan last week told reporters in Jaipur that the list should be expected around October 31. Yet another group of Congressmen here believed that the first list would come only after the festival of Diwali on November 3.
Sources said Monday's CEC meeting was more about the party candidates in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. It is likely that the candidates for MP get declared on Tuesday, while the candidate selection for Rajasthan comes up later in the week.
The screening committee for Rajasthan under Maken that held several meetings until last week is believed to have shortlisted single-name panels for around 100 assembly seats, while is ready with two to three name panels for the remaining 100 seats. Congress's first list of candidates for the state would majorly have names that are obvious, like that of chief minister Gehlot, parliamentary affairs minister Shanti Dhariwal, health minister AA Khan and industries minister Rajendra Pareek, among others.
The party is yet to declare its policy stand on allowing sitting parliamentarians to contest the coming assembly elections. Sources said the party was likely to permit just a few of them, including Jaipur MP Mahesh Joshi, Jaipur rural MP Lal Chand Kataria and Salumber MP Tarachand Bhagora.
source:http://www.thehindu.com