Congress to repeat all MLAs in 2019 Maharashtra polls

New Delhi: All sitting Congress MLAs would be repeated in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls, sources said after the Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting, which was chaired by Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence, here on Saturday.

A senior party source present at the two-&-half-hour plus meeting, on the condition of anonymity, told IANS, "All sitting Congress MLAs are going to be repeated in the Assembly polls."

The meeting was attended by party General Secretaries K.C. Venugopal, Ambika Soni, Veerappa Moily, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjuna Kharge, who is also state in-charge, and several Maharashtra leaders.

According to the source, about 60 names were cleared by the screening committee earlier in the day.

Speaking to the media later, Kharge said 90 per cent of the names, sent by the screening committee to the CEC, were accepted. The screening committee would meet again on September 17 and the CEC on September 18 in which a lot of other names would be discussed, he added.

Discussions were held on over 125 seats in Maharashtra, the source added.

On the seat-sharing formula, Kharge said, "Talks have been held and we will decide the seats. All things are going on properly."

To a question, if Raj Thackrey's Maharashtra Nirman Sena will be part of the alliance in the state, he said, "There was no discussion on Thackrey's party."

Another senior party leader, present at the meeting, said the MNS would not be part of the alliance.

In the 2014 elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power by winning 122 seats in the 288-member Assembly. It's ally Shiv Sena won 62 seats.

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) bagged 42 and 41 seats, respectively.

However, both the Congress and the NCP have faced departures. Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar, who contested the North Mumbai seat, quit the party last week, followed by former Minister and senior leader Kripa Shankar Singh.