Buoyed by the victory in the recently concluded byelections held to two Lok Sabha seats — Bangalore Rural and Mandya — the Congress has decided to announce the list of its candidates by December for the 2014 general election. The party in planning to contest from all the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies.
According to party sources, the KPCC has issued deadline to all its observers to submit recommendations before Saturday for scrutiny.
Among the 28 Lok Sabha observers panel, the KPCC has received report from 20 Lok Sabha segments and the remaining are expected to submit the report in a day or two, KPCC General Secretary Bosaraju told Express here on Thursday.
The KPCC has deputed a five-member panel of senior leaders to each of the Lok Sabha constituency to elicit opinion from cross sections in the society. They have been asked to send their recommendations on the probable candidates, he said.
The KPCC president has convened a meeting of the office-bearers of the state committee on Saturday, Bosaraju said.
“The committee will scrutinise all the names suggested by the committees. The names recommended by each of the observers committee will be pruned further before sending it to the state-level screening panel,” Bosaraju added.
He said that the observers have met the party’s rank and file at grassroots level and toured extensively.
Meanwhile, the observers of three Lok Sabha constituencies in Bangalore Urban district (North, South and Central), will hold meeting with the ministers, MLAs, former MLAs, corporators and other leaders and elicit their opinions on the party’s probable candidates soon.
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) had reportedly deployed some private agencies and equipped its own list of party candidates who could be fielded as the party nominees in the 2014 general elections.
The AICC is expected to consider each and every name recommended by the KPCC with its list of names suggested by the professional private agency before announcing the final list of the party candidates, the sources said.
It may be noted that the Congress has nine members of Parliament from Karnataka. The BJP has 18 and JD(S) has one member.