The party's screening committee has called for a series of meetings between February 25 and March 3 to deliberate on the names of possible candidates.
The Congress party is beginning its process of candidate selection days ahead of the party's Central Working Committee meet in Ahmedabad, which is scheduled to be held on February 28. The party's screening committee has called for a series of meetings between February 25 and March 3 to deliberate on the names of possible candidates. These names will be vetted by the Central Election Committee which has meetings slated between March 3 and March 7.
The screening committee in each state will be made up of the party's general secretary organisation KC Venugopal, of general secretaries and secretaries in-charge of states, apart from respective state presidents and CLP leaders.
In a meeting he held with secretaries in-charge of states on February 13, party president Rahul Gandhi asked the leaders to ensure women and young men are given adequate seats. Gandhi said that young leaders with potential, especially those of Congress's ideological bent, should be promoted as they can bring in more people in the party in the future.
He also asked them to speed up the process of candidate selection, and said that the screening committee must take into account caste and regional equations when distributing tickets.
Gandhi has further directed that sitting MLAs and MLCs should not be given tickets, and the decision to any exception to that will be deliberated by the CEC alone. Sources present in the meeting told dna that the rationale for this is "long-term organisational prospects".
In the same meeting, held before he dropped by at Sharad Pawar's house and spoke to the media alongside West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Gandhi also spoke of alliances. Leaders from West Bengal advised Gandhi to stay away from an alliance with the Trinamool Congress in the state.
'BETTER PARTY BASE'
Sources also said that Gandhi asked the secretaries to ensure more non-Congress aligned people become members of the party, so that the party's footprint can go up.
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