Congress ticket interview: Much ado about nothing

A huge crowd of ticket aspirants assembled for interviews before the sub committees of State Election Committee on Tuesday. But, neither applicants nor interviewers seemed serious about this process of candidate selection.

What makes the entire exercise dubious is the fact that many of those in the interview panels are themselves contenders for the ticket. While, it has caused heart burn among ordinary workers who had lined up for the interview, it also left no doubt in their minds about futility of such exercise.

Besides, a couple of sub-committee members skipped meeting or left midway. Rank junior like Mukesh Bhakar who lost university election and was suspended for anti party activities, is in the panel taking  interviews of four time MLAs.

Interestingly, the panel members are not clear about how to shortlist the candidates. They have to make panel of five possible candidates for every seat but there are no set parameters.

“This is just a formality to give an impression of fair dealing in ticket distribution, assuage any ill feelings that only near and dear ones of senior leaders always get chance to contest the election,” a former party MLA said.

Yet, everyone came fully prepared for the interview. Mostly the applicants were asked general questions about their areas, caste equations, number of booths in the Assembly segment for which they have applied but the most important question was about managing the election campaign. They were asked how much they could spend on the campaign and if they have means to finance it.

“For the first time ordinary worker has got a chance to be on equal footing. It gives workers a feeling that they too have a stake in the party. Since, they have been given a chance to stake claim for ticket under a properly laid out procedure, there would be no hard feelings about fairness in ticket distribution,” said Suresh Choudhary, who is member of the sub-committee for Kota division.

More than 3,500 people have applied for tickets for 200 Assembly seats, party spokesperson Archana Sharma said.