- Strategy: Names also sought from members of election committee
- Congress in preparation to announce names of candidates from 10 to 15 September
Chronicle Reporter, Bhopal
After the announcement of 39 candidates by the BJP for the assembly elections, the Congress is also preparing to declare about one hundred candidates between 10 and 15 September.
In this regard, party general secretary in-charge of the state Randeep Surjewala and chairman of the screening committee for candidate selection and former Union minister Jitendra Singh are coming to Bhopal on September 2 to discuss with the district and state officials. They will conduct separate opinion polls on the names of potential candidates from the district president and district in-charges in the state Congress office. They will also address them regarding the preparations and strategy for the elections. This will be the first visit of Surjewala after becoming the state in-charge in place of JP Agarwal this month.
Survey will be the basis of candidate selection
On the other hand, in the first meeting of the Election Committee held on Sunday, State Congress President Kamal Nath has made it clear that the candidate will be selected on the basis of survey only. By making the survey the basis, there will be less possibility of dispute within the party regarding the selection. Sources told that at present three surveys are going on. In this, one is being done by Kamal Nath, while two are being done at the national level of the party. Surveys have been done before this also. In this, information has been collected on the status of the claimants at the local level, including the caste equation and other aspects. Feedback is also being taken from booth, sector and mandalam committees so that problems do not arise after candidate selection.
Asked to propose names of candidates
Before his arrival, the members of the election committee have also been asked to propose names of candidates, which will be placed before Surjewala. Apart from this, the district president and in-charge can keep the name after talking to Surjewala separately. Both the officials will remain in the state for four days. After preparing a list of possible names here, the final decision will be taken in Delhi.
