Differences hold up Congress candidates list; Kharge, Moily make it tough for Siddaramaiah

BENGALURU: Differences among senior Congress leaders over giving tickets to defectors, some of the tainted new entrants and allowing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to contest from two constituencies has forced the Congress to delay the announcement of its first list of candidates. The party’s Central Election Committee, which met in Delhi on Friday, failed to arrive at a consensus. It is set to meet again on Saturday to finalise the list.

Emerging out of the meeting, Siddaramaiah said, “We have not finalised the list yet. The election committee will meet again tomorrow for a wider discussion.” Siddaramaiah’s inclination to contest from Badami apart from Chamundeshwari, where he is finding the going tough, is said to have drawn opposition from some of the senior leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge and M Veerappa Moily. They feel that his move will send a wrong signal to voters in the old Mysuru region and affect the party’s chances. There is apparently a demand to alloq KPCC chief G Parameshwara to contest from two seats if Siddaramaiah is given the privilege.

In the afternoon, the election committee meeting was chaired by Rahul Gandhi and later in the evening it was chaired by Sonia Gandhi. The meeting was  attended by Parameshwara, K C Venugopal, Madhusudhan Mistry, Janardhan Dwivedi and others.

According to sources, the move to give tickets to new entrants like Anand Singh, Nagendra and Ashok Kheny is said to have drawn criticism from Kharge and Moily as they felt it could help the opposition mount a strong attack on Congress. While Singh and Nagendra are accused in the illegal iron ore mining scam, Kheny is under a cloud over the controversial NICE project.

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