GUWAHATI: The
Congress screening committee, for finalising the names of candidates for the upcoming
Assam assembly elections, is set to give a final shape to the list for the first phase by Friday.
Led by veteran Congressman and former Maharashtra chief minister,
Prithviraj Chavan, CM, the panel has been conducting marathon meetings with district and block Congress committee leaders to take their final view on probable candidates, whose names have got the nod of the Pradesh Election Committee of the Congress. MLAs Kamleshwar Patel and Dipika Pandey Singh are other members of the screening committee.
For the first time, the panel has come to Assam, instead of calling the state leaders to Delhi. but the final list will be declared by the
AICC in New Delhi. The first list is likely to be announced by Saturday, Congress sources said.
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and party in-charge for Assam, Jitendra Singh, on Thursday said, “The committee is seeking the views of grassroots workers regarding aspirants to find out who are active on the field. Only after the interaction with them, the tickets will be finalized.”
He said that the decision regarding the tickets will be mainly taken on the candidates’ potential to win. Several senior leaders of the party, however, want the tickets for the sitting Congress MLAs, who won the last election despite the Modi wave that led to the formation of the first BJP government in the state.
Sources in the Congress said Hagrama Mohilary’s BPF is likely to get all 12 seats in the Bodoland Territorial Region, as a part of the seat-sharing agreement. On the other hand, the Left parties will get four seats. CPM will get the Sarbhog and Rangia seats in lower Assam. Sarbhog, once a Left bastion, is now represented by state BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass. On the other hand, CPI and CPI-ML (Liberation) have got Morigaon and Behali seats, respectively.