New Delhi : Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi will chair a meeting of the central election committee on March 7 to clear around 100 Lok Sabha candidates from around a dozen states.
The screening committees for all the north-eastern states and those for Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana had shortlisted the names of potential candidates over the past weeks which will now be scrutinized and approved by the CEC.
According to party insiders, former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and his former deputy TS Singh Deo are likely to be fielded from Rajnandgaon and Bilaspur seats respectively besides state unit chief Deepak Baij from Bastar, Jyotsana Mahant from Korba, Tamradhwaj Sahu from Durg, Vikas Upadhayay from Raipur and Shiv Dahariya from Janjgir-Champa.
In Rajasthan former chief minister Ashok Gehlot is not keen to contest the national polls but wants a ticket for his son Vaibhav Gehlot from the Jalore-Sirohi seat. According to party insiders, Gehlot who is a member of the national alliance committee, has now become active in the state for the coming polls along with state unit chief Govind Dotasara.
Among other senior leaders who may be fielded are ex minister Ashok Chandna from Kota, AICC secretary Dheeraj Gurjar from Bhilwara and ex MP Raghu Sharma from Ajmer.
In party-ruled Karnataka the screening panel has suggested the names of several young faces including Shreya Patel, Raksha Ramaiah, GB Vinay Kumar, Priyanka Jharkiohli, Mrunal Hebbalkar and Sowmya Reddy.
Both CM Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shiv Kumar have held extensive sessions to clear the names as they have to ensure the Congress sweeps the 28 seats in the southern state.
In Kerala, the Congress is likely to repeat most of its sitting MPs but it is not yet decided if Rahul Gandhi will be repeated from Wayanad or he will shift to Telangana, where chief minister Revanth Reddy has assured the high command to win all the 17 parliamentary seats.
In Delhi, the party may field veteran JP Agarwal, Udit Raj, Alka Lamba, Sandeep Dikshit, Arvinder Lovey or Jai Kishan from the three seats it has got as part of a pact with AAP.
In Haryana, the party may give ticket to veteran Kumari Selja from Ambala, Gita Bhukkal from Sirsa, Deepender Hooda from Rohtak, Col Rohit Chaudhary from Sonipat, Jitendra Bhardwaj from Gurgaon and Karan Dalal from Faridabad, said party insiders. The Kurukshetra seat has been given to AAP as per the pact.
“The probable candidates are a mix of youth and experience. We have tried to ensure that caste representations in Haryana were matched with the winnability factor in shortlisting candidates. This is a crucial election and we need the best candidates,” AICC general secretary in charge of Delhi and Haryana Dipak Babaria told this channel.
The Congress had initially planned to clear the names by end of February and declare them in first week of March but the exercise got slightly delayed due to Rahul Gandhi’s preoccupation with his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra and the pending seat-sharing pacts in Bihar, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, said party insiders.
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