Congress sets up screening panels to pick candidates for assembly polls

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday set up screening committees to finalise candidates for the assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana later this year.

Gaurav Gogoi will head the screening committee for Rajasthan with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot included among the ex-officio members of the panel.

While Gogoi will be the chairman of the Rajasthan screening committee, Ganesh Godiyal and Abhishek Dutt will be members of the panel.

Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra, AICC in-charge of state Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Gehlot, Pilot, C P Joshi and AICC secretaries in-charge of the state have been named as ex-officio members of the panel, according to a statement released by the party.

For Madhya Pradesh, Jitendra Singh will be the chairman of the screening committee while Ajay Kumar Lallu and Saptagiri Ulaka will be the members.

Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kamal Nath, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Govind Singh, AICC in-charge of state J P Agarwal, former chief minister Digvijaya Singh, chairman of campaign committee Kantilal Bhuria, Kamleshwar Patel and AICC secretaries in-charge of the state will be ex-officio members of the panel.

Ajay Maken will head the screening committee for Chhattisgarh, while L Hanumanthaiah and Netta D'Souza will be its members.

Chhattisgarh Congress chief Deepak Baij, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, AICC in-charge of state Kumari Selja, Deputy CM T S Singhdeo and AICC secretaries in-charge of the state will be the ex-officio members of the panel.

For Telangana, K Muralidharan will be the chairman of the screening committee while Baba Siddique and Jignesh Mevani will be the members.

State party chief A Revanth Reddy, CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, AICC in-charge of state Manikrao Thakre, MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy, and AICC secretaries in-charge of the state will be ex-officio members of the panel.

The setting up of the screening committees comes after the Congress on Monday appointed election observers for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram.

Senior party leader Madhusudan Mistry was appointed as senior observer for Rajasthan and Sasikanth Senthil as observer, while party general secretary Randeep Surjewala was made the senior observer for Madhya Pradesh and Chandrakant Handore as observer.

Former Uttarakhand PCC chief Pritam Singh has been made the senior observer for Chhattisgarh while Meenakshi Natarajan has been made observer for the state.

For Telangana, Deepa Dasmunshi has been made senior observer with Sirivella Prasad as observer while Sachin Rao has been made observer for Mizoram.

The assembly elections in these states are slated this year, and the Congress is in power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where it seeks to repeat its government.

In other poll-bound states, the Congress is seeking to wrest control from the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, from BRS in Telangana and from the NDA in Mizoram.