New Delhi, Mar 14: The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the Congress, headed by party president Sonia Gandhi, will continue its meeting here to finalise the second list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The states which figured in yesterday’s deliberations were Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Punjab.
The first list of 75 candidates was announced on March 10.
The CEC, which resumed its meeting yesterday, will also meet today and on March 15 to finalise the names of at least 100 more candidates in the three days, party sources said, adding the names of candidates were likely to be announced officially on March 16.
The entire exercise of selecting the party candidates was likely to be completed by March 22, the sources said. In the three days of sittings, the names of candidates for Kerala, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Delhi, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh would be finalised.
Meanwhile, the Congress screening committees for Uttaranchal, Assam and Orissa met here to shortlist the names of candidates for 34 out of the total 40 seats from the panels of names forwarded to them by the state election committees. These would be submitted to the CEC for final selection.
The screening committee meetings were chaired by CWC special invitee and in-charge of the three states Digvijay Singh and attended among others by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, Orissa PCC chief J B Patnaik and Uttaranchal PCC chief Harish Rawat, besides AICC general secretary Ambika Soni.
Bureau Report