Congress candidates list to be released within a month

Bengaluru: The Congress, which is gearing up for a majority in the state assembly elections, intends to announce the list of candidates for at least 150 constituencies by the beginning of the new year.

In addition to the 70 constituencies of sitting MLAs, it wants to announce candidates for 70 to 80 constituencies that are not contested locally within the party. Thereby, it is intended to facilitate the candidates to engage in campaigning and strategy in the concerned field without any confusion or uncertainty regarding the ticket.

Candidates have already been identified for 110 constituencies based on the opinion of the district units, observer report, survey report. After the return of legislative party leader Siddaramaiah, who is resting after a minor surgery, and KPCC president DK Shivakumar, who is on a trip to Dubai, the senior leaders of the state Congress will meet next weekend and continue the process of identifying candidates in more non-controversial constituencies. Party sources said that the first list of potential candidates for at least 150 constituencies is being finalized by the end of the month.

Candidates should be freed from the confusion of ticket distribution and engage in election work to the full extent. For that, the High Command has instructed to prepare a list of candidates for areas where there is no problem. A list is being prepared based on that directive. Candidates of 110 constituencies, where there is consensus even at the leader level, have already been verbally instructed to focus on election preparations.

KPCC election committee formation decision will be out within December 10th. Over 35 to 40 senior leaders of the state are being appointed to this committee, which will act as an election-related policy-making committee. Besides, a full-fledged election campaign committee is being formed under the chairmanship of MB Patil.

A Dalit Unity Conference at Chitradurga on January 8 and a felicitation ceremony for AICC President Mallikarjuna Kharge at Kalaburagi on January 10 have been scheduled. After this, the state Congress leaders will start the bus yatra in four teams. Sources in the KPCC said that the top brass has instructed that a partial list of candidates should be ready by then, barring problematic constituencies.

This time, KPCC had invited applications from aspirants to issue tickets for the assembly elections. The application fee was Rs 5,000 along with Rs 2 lakh DD for general category and Rs 1 lakh DD for SC and ST category. In this background, more than 1200 aspirants have applied for the assembly election ticket, and it is interesting to know who will get the ticket.