New Delhi: The Central Election Committee
of the Congress is understood to have cleared the names of 140
candidates for the Bihar Assembly election for the first three
phases.
Party sources said that two separate meetings were
held, one in the morning and another in the afternoon which
cleared the names.
In the morning session of the CEC, chaired by party
President Sonia Gandhi which was also attended by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, 70 names were cleared.
Sources said the first list would be declared soon.
The CEC, is the apex body of Congress to decide
candidates for elections after the Screening Committee and the
Pradesh Election Committee.
Congress is going it alone in the state and
contesting all the 243 seats after several years. The party
has been out of power in the state for the last 20 years.
The party`s screening committee headed by AICC general
secretary B K Hariprasad had a series of meetings to finalise
a list of 2-3 candidates for each of the constituencies.
The Screening Committee meeting spanned over
almost a week starting from September 14 and held detailed
deliberations on every seat given the fact that there are at
least ten contenders for each seat.
The Pradesh Election Committee of the party had
earlier sent its list to the AICC after a two-day meeting in
Patna over a week back.
Sources said the party will focus on giving tickets to
youths and accommodating all sections of society apart from
the winnability criteria as Congress has no particular caste
or community orientation in the state unlike other parties.
-PTI
