BENGALURU: Looking to quell any kind of dissension over distribution of party tickets quickly, the Congress has decided to announce its list of candidates for all the 224 assembly seats at one go on Sunday.
Sources said the party had almost finalised the list by Saturday evening, but the announcement was delayed as party president Rahul Gandhi had to take a call on 20 seats.
Meanwhile, dissension has already surfaced with KPCC vice-president V R Sudarshan quitting the post reportedly over not being considered for the Kolar seat.
After brainstorming for about four days, the Congress seems to have arrived at a consensus on its list of candidates for the Karnataka assembly elections. The party will release the list of all 224 candidates on Sunday.
Sources said after haggling for over four days, the party had almost finalised the list by Saturday evening, but the process was delayed as party president Rahul Gandhi had to take a call on 20 seats that had become the bone of contention. On Sunday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and senior party leaders will release the list at the AICC headquarters in the national capital.
On Saturday, the Central Election Committee of the Congress met for the fourth time under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi to finalise the list of candidates but the process was bumpy, according to party sources. Twenty seats, including Siddaramaiah’s second seat Badami, were discussed in detail by the CEC. The demand to allow KPCC president G Parameshwara to contest from two seats if Siddaramaiah is given the privilege continued on Saturday, sources said. Siddaramaiah on Friday met a delegation of leaders from Badami — an indication of his eagerness to contest from the constituency apart from his home turf Chamundeshwari.
Seats like Pulakeshinagar, a reserved constituency in Bengaluru, cooked up a storm at the meeting. While senior leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge batted for Prasanna Kumar to be given a ticket, Siddaramaiah pressed for Akhanda Srinivass Murthy, the JD(S) rebel MLA who joined Congress in March, sources said. Siddaramaiah had based his demand on the 48.75% vote share Srinivasa Murthy garnered in the 2013 assembly elections, as against 38.6% vote share of then Congress candidate Prasanna Kumar.
“There were no disagreements or infighting amongst us. We discussed seat distribution on various parameters. The candidate list will be made public on Sunday,” KPCC president G Parameshwara said. The old guard of the Congress, led by Kharge, is said to have attempted to stall Siddaramaiah’s attempts to influence candidate selection for the last 20 seats.
“The Central Election Committee had finalised its list on Friday, but about 15-20 seats were pending. It is usual practice for the Congress president to decide on those seats and the discussion about it was held on Sunday,” said K C Venugopal, AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka. The Congress is now set to release names of all 224 candidates at one go so that rebellion, if any, is quelled within a week after which campaign can begin in full swing.