Top leaders of the Congress, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, his predecessors Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, met to finalise the candidates for the crucial polls next month.
The meeting of the grand old party’s Central Election Committee was held at Sonia’s residence in the national Capital.
Earlier in the day the party received a shot in the arm as Uttar Pradesh leader, Imran Masood, ex-MLA from western UP area who was expelled by the BSP in August, returned to the Congress on with the party describing it as “ghar wapsi”.
Early this week party leaders met with its Madhya Pradesh screening committee to pick on candidates for the impending assembly elections later this year.
The ruling BJP and Congress have stepped up their poll efforts ahead of the state’s election. BJP has already released two candidate lists for the Madhya Pradesh elections. Their second list includes numerous state-level BJP stalwarts, including Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel, and Faggan Singh Kulaste.
Congress is attempting to dethrone the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, with Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party’s national general secretary, already conducting rallies in the state.
Congress gained 114 seats in the 2018 assembly elections, compared to the BJP’s 109 and the former established government under Kamal Nath.
However, the Kamal Nath administration fell in March 2020 following a mutiny by MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia, opening the way for Shivraj Singh Chouhan to return as CM.
After joining, Masood said Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was transformational for politics and following the cross-country march, the Congress won Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, and now was going to win in four states.
Welcoming Masood into the party, Congress Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Shukla said this was Masood’s “ghar wapsi (homecoming)” and he has now vowed to never leave the party.
An influential Muslim leader from Saharanpur, Masood was arrested in March 2014 on charges of hate speech after he threatened to “chop” Narendra Modi, who was the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, “into pieces”.
Many political observers see Masood’s return to the Congress fold as giving the party credence in laying claim to the Saharanpur seat in seat-sharing talks among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners.