New Delhi:Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge are moving fast on Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir and will oversee ticket distribution for the Union Territory in the meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee on August 23. According to party insiders around a dozen seats, which the Congress is certain to contest will be approved in the first CEC meeting, which will take place soon after the Screening Committee meeting on August 23.
For the remaining seats that will come in the grand old party’s quota based on a seat-sharing formula that is in the works with the potential allies, the Congress will clear the candidates over the coming days. Rahul and Kharge recently reviewed the J&K Screening Committee’s work and directed its members to focus on good candidates, who were committed to party ideology.
LoP Rahul Gandhi and Kharge, who are on a two-day trip to UT J&K, dropped sufficient hints on Thursday that the Congress wanted to take its INDIA bloc allies together to fight the BJP, but made it clear that there will be no compromise concerning the party workers.
According to party insiders, the visit of the top two leaders to the border region was to convey a message that the Congress was a dominant player in the UT and that it was the only party capable of taking on the BJP nationally be it the Lok Sabha polls or Assembly elections.
“The platform of the Congress is open to any party or person, who is willing to work, along with us in our fight against the BJP. We had said that before the Lok Sabha polls and are again saying that ahead of the Assembly elections in J&K. Only the Congress fights the BJP ideologically and Rahul Gandhi represents that fight,” AICC functionary and former J&K unit chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir told ETV Bharat.