Pravesh Kumar Mishra, New Delhi
For the selection of Congress candidates to be fielded in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections-2023, the party’s newly formed Central Election Committee has given final approval to the names of about 125 candidates after extensive discussion on about 140 seats. There is talk that the names of the candidates will be announced in the initial days of Durga Puja.
If sources are to be believed, the CEC members had a detailed discussion on the list of possible candidates proposed by the screening committee. State in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala and State President Kamal Nath presented the proposal prepared in the traditional manner to the CEC regarding area-wise candidates on the basis of local survey and other reports.
It was made clear at the very beginning of the meeting that the main basis of candidate selection will be his ability to win. After this, in the meeting, some members of CEC made public their information received from various sources and asked the scrutiny committee to re-investigate for some seats. If sources are to be believed, it has been decided to field most of the party’s current sitting MLAs. Although the CEC was requested to cancel the tickets of about a dozen MLAs citing their bad report cards, no final decision in this regard has been taken by the CEC in today’s meeting. A suggestion has been given to the state leadership to conduct a survey again and check on such MLAs. Sources are saying that clear instructions have been given in the meeting that the candidature of any capable candidate should not be affected due to factionalism.
Candidates losing by a very small margin to get chance
The party is going to give a chance to most of the candidates who lost by a very small margin in the last elections. For this reason, special discussions have been held on such areas after the seating arrangement. Keeping in mind the strategy of cornering senior BJP leaders in their own areas, a strategy has been made to pay special attention to such areas. A strategy has also been made to field senior leaders of the party and a final decision has also been taken on their names. Sources are saying that the names of capable candidates have also been considered for about 50 such seats where currently there are BJP MLAs. It is being said that the announcement of the names of the candidates decided today has been postponed due to patriarchal reasons, but such candidates have been asked to give formal indication from the state unit so that there is no lack of preparation. Sources are telling that if the survey is conducted for the remaining seats as per the guidelines of CEC, then before the release of the first list, i.e. before Navratri, there will be a second meeting of CEC in which the final decision will be taken on most of the remaining seats.
