- Congress brainstorming; tickets of some sitting MLAs may be cut
Pravesh Kumar Mishra, New Delhi
While brainstorming the names of possible candidates to be fielded in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, the scrutiny committee of the Congress Party has finalized one name each for about 100 seats while a panel has been prepared for 30 seats due to the lack of consensus on one name. The remaining seats will be discussed in the next meeting.
If sources are to be believed, on the basis of a three-tier survey report along with the reports of local observers and various units of the organization, the investigation committee of the Congress Party has examined the sitting MLAs as well as the seats where the party has been losing continuously in the last two and three elections. Brainstorming has been done regarding the names of possible candidates. It is being said that tickets of about two dozen MLAs with bad report cards can be canceled. However, a mutual consensus has not yet been reached among the provincial leaders regarding this. Many senior leaders, with their arguments in the meeting, have expressed disagreement with the proposal to cancel the tickets of some sitting MLAs. Sources are saying that along with the names of some identified sitting MLAs with very bad reports, one or two more names of other influential potential candidates can be added to the panel. The biggest concern and challenge of the party is about 50 seats.
Despite multi-level experiments, the party is continuously losing these seats in the last several elections. Therefore, most of the veteran provincial leaders of the party have unanimously proposed to give a chance to relatively young and new faces. KC Venugopal, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, Kamal Nath, Saptagiri Ulka, Ajay Kumar Lallu, Digvijay Singh, Kanti Lal Bhuria, Suresh Pachauri etc. were present in the meeting.
In the meeting held on Tuesday, a consensus was reached on one name each for several seats on the basis of the survey report. Sources are telling that even before the meeting, state in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala and organization general secretary KC Venugopal had clearly told the leaders of the state that by dividing the areas within the state, the names of the candidates were not proposed only on the basis of their personal favorites. Rather, the decision taken with collective consensus on the name of the winning candidate will be proposed before the Central Election Committee.
