CHENNAI: The Congress is facing difficulty in finalising its candidate list for the Assembly poll as the party’s screening committee has run into trouble in identifying suitable candidates for five of the 28 constituencies allotted to it by the DMK as part of the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA).
Sources said the party was unable to identify winnable candidates for Ooty, Mayiladuthurai, Attur (SC), Sankarankovil, and Ambasamudram seats.
A senior Congress leader told TNIE that members of the TN unit involved in the constituency identification process had to accept 14 seats from the DMK that were not part of the party’s original wish list submitted to the Dravidian major.
“Of the 28 seats allotted, we got 16 where we have sitting MLAs. Of the 16 seats, Ooty and Mayiladuthurai were not part of our wish list, and we did not intend to renominate the candidates,” the senior leader said.
‘Five constituencies got unfavourable assessments from strategy agencies’
“In the remaining 12 constituencies, we did not receive enough applications of interest,” the senior leader, who attended the screening committee meeting in Delhi, said.
After the allocation of constituencies, the party’s candidate screening committee shortlisted the aspirants.
The list was then shared with a strategy agency to conduct a ground-level survey on electoral prospects.
Based on the findings, a detailed meeting was held in Delhi on Wednesday night which continued until 10 pm.
“We had sought around 45 seats and had already prepared the ground in nearly 80 potential constituencies. However, 14 of the constituencies allotted to us by the DMK were not part of our list. We have to, therefore, resubmit the constituency and probable candidate list to the strategy agency for a fresh survey to identify candidates with better winning prospects,” a source said.
The source added that the party had engaged two agencies to conduct surveys, both of which returned unfavourable assessments for these five constituencies.
“Apart from these, Melur and Usilampatti also did not show encouraging responses for the shortlisted candidates,” the source said.
Speaking to reporters in Delhi late on Thursday, TNCC president K Selvaperunthagai said that they have finalised 85% of the candidates and the rest will be finalised tonight.
“We can expect the candidate list by tonight or by tomorrow morning,” he told reporters, adding that there was no trouble in choosing the candidate.