The Delhi Pradesh Congress' Election Committee met on Tuesday to scrutinise the list of candidature forms for all 70 constituencies and appeared to be denying tickets to those who had lost twice in the Assembly and Councillor polls and by a huge margin.
The Election Committee also deliberated over the issue of giving tickets to those with a criminal background or any FIR registered against them. It was the considered view of the 27-member Election Committee that party should not give tickets to tainted persons and severity of the crime has to be taken into account as well while finalising candidatures.
The Committee will also consider the opinions of the Congress leadership on the issue. It may be recalled that Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi trashed an Ordinance designed to protect convicted lawmakers from disqualification from Parliament as “complete nonsense”.
Sources in the Delhi Congress said that there is around 33 per cent reservation for women in ticket distribution; however, the final decision will be taken by the Congress high command. The Election Committee has spliced into two groups to scrutinise the panel of three probable candidates for each of the Assembly seats.
Sources said that the Committee will also have to assign reason while finalising and why they should be given a ticket to a particular Assembly seat. The Election Committee will meet again on October 11-12 to discuss the panel of probable candidates.
In a related development, the Manifesto Committee has directed members to submit their viewpoints and/or suggestions in writing to the Committee. Farhad Suri, Varyam Kaur and Abhijit Singh Gulati have submitted their suggestions in writing to the Committee. The Delhi Government Ministers, who are members of the Committee, suggested that the Government’s achievements of 15 years should be incorporated in the manifesto as well, so as to let people know that the Government has fulfilled its promises.