Gujarat polls: Kharge chairs CEC meet, Cong's 1st list of candidates to be out very soon

NEW DELHI: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge chaired a meeting of the party's central election committee (CEC) here on Friday during which several candidates for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls were finalised.

Sources said the opposition party's first list of candidates for the Gujarat polls will be out very soon.

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi joined the meeting online, while the rest of the participants attended it physically at the AICC headquarters here.

CEC members and party general secretaries Mukul Wasnik and K C Venugopal, besides Mohsina Kidwai, Girija Vyas and Ambika Soni, were among those present at the meeting.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge for Gujarat Raghu Sharma and the party's state unit chief, Jagdish Thakor, were also in attendance.

The Congress is seeking to oust the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from government in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where the saffron party has been in power for more than two decades.

Elections to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held in two phases -- December 1 and 5 -- while the votes will be counted on December 8.