Congress may give tickets to all Lok Sabha MPs, 2009 winners from Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: Amid the tedious negotiations and bargaining with likely alliance partners, the Congress leadership has fast-tracked its process of finalising the party candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. After a series of meetings of Congress screening committees for various states here, sources indicated the possibility of the party re-nominating almost all sitting LS members. The AICC has already informed the Pradesh Congress Committees that they need not send a panel of more than one probable candidate for the seats where Congress has LS members.

The Congress leadership, it is also learnt, has almost finalised its first list of candidates from Uttar Pradesh. This list, it is learnt, could figure names of almost all 22 party MPs who had won in the 2009 LS polls. Besides, the first list of UP could also include some BJP and BSP rebels, sources said.

The message that has come out of the screening committee meetings is the party could also consider re-nominating those who had lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls “by comparatively smaller margins”. Further, in those seats where the


Congress has been losing the last two or three LS polls badly, the party would prefer to field fresh faces including youngsters and women, especially those who have fared well in many party surveys and opinion polls done through the party’s Shakti app.

Though in principle, the party is not encouraging Rajya Sabha members to seek Lok Sabha tickets, sources said the leadership may make an exception for some wellentrenched leaders.

After getting internal reports from various PCCs, the screening committees of the states—under the chairmanship of AICC general secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal—have been conducting a series of meetings to finalise the list, which could be placed before a Central Election Committee for the final nod.