The Congress’ Central Election Committee (CEC) on Thursday discussed the probable names of candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge chaired the maiden meeting of the CEC, in presence of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and party’s general secretary in charge of Organisation KC Venugopal, and other senior leaders, at the party headquarters here.
During the meeting, they discussed at length the names of the party’s nominees to be announced in the first list for the general elections.
The meeting of the CEC came a day after Congress’ Manifesto Committee, headed by former Union minister and party stalwart P Chidambaram, had handed over the draft manifesto to Kharge.
Notably, the party’s National Alliance Committee (NAC), which is being headed by Mukul Wasnik, has been holding meetings with top leaders of parties under the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc on seat-sharing for the general elections.
The party announced seat-sharing with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Haryana and Goa.
In Delhi, as per the seat-sharing arrangement, the AAP will contest in four parliamentary constituencies and the Congress in three seats.
The Congress is yet to make an official announcement on the total number of seats it would be contesting in the polls.
It may be mentioned that the ruling BJP released the first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming elections last week. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi parliamentary seat.
The saffron party announced candidates for five of the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, denying tickets to four sitting MPs, including Union Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi.