Taking cue from AAP, Congress to name 15 LS candidates directly

NEW DELHI: As part of Congress' novel move to take feedback from grassroot level while deciding on ticket distribution in 15 Lok Sabha seats, the party will select at least two candidates from UP and one each from Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bihar directly on the basis of responses from village heads and cadres.

Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka were referred to as among other states where the experiment of choosing candidates on the basis of feedback received from village heads and party workers at the grassroots will be undertaken, party General Secretary Madhusudan Mistry told reporters.

Rahul Gandhi had announced the novel experiment during the AICC meeting on last Friday, promising that the formula, if successful, will be replicated elsewhere as well.

The Congress vice president had said that after involving the common man directly in the manifesto-making exercise, a decision has now been taken to enable people at the grassroots to directly elect their candidates.

AAP had also taken feedback from people while selecting candidates for the Delhi Assembly polls.

Mistry said that the Congress has also completed an exercise of shortlisting possible candidates in all the 543 Lok Sabha seats through an elaborate procedure taking into confidence the local leaders.

He said that as many as 54 facilitators were selected by the AICC for the exercise who were assigned 10 constituencies each. The facilitators were selected from among MPs and former MPs of the Lower House.

He, however, made it clear that the list was only advisory in nature and only those candidates who have been forwarded by the Pradesh Election Committee to the Central Election Committee could be considered for tickets.