The Congress in Madhya Pradesh is falling short of eligible young candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections. The Youth Congress had demanded 28 tickets, but after screening at different levels, there were just 12 who were shortlisted.
To select candidates from among the youth, a separate screening is on at the national level. All the aspiring youths have appeared for interview and a final list is being reportedly prepared. However, party sources said that not more than 12 members of Youth Congress are likely to get party tickets.
During screening, a majority of the youths were not found up to mark and thus it is likely that the Youth Congress will have only a few seats in its kitty. This way, the party too would be left with some space for accommodating candidates with strings to pull, sources added.
Similar is the situation with the women’s wing of the Congress that had claimed one ticket from each district. later, only 35 names were shortlisted and handed over to the screening committee in-charge, Madhusudan Mistry. State Mahila Congress president Archana Jaiswal told ‘The Pioneer’ that she had submitted a list of 35 candidates and a second list of 25 women would soon be submitted.
Four women are already there in the list of Youth Congress probables, Jaiswal said there was no problem in including women in the youth wing. “After all, they are women and we have been demanding tickets for women. If we get at least 30 to 35 tickets, it would be an fair achievement for the fair sex,” she added.
She further said that to brighten the chances of the women in the Assembly elections, she had written to AICC chairperson Sonia Gandhi requesting that the women reservation bill be cleared in the current session of Parliament so that more women could get tickets in the State Assembly polls in November this year.