The much awaited inaugural meeting of the all important 23 member Uttar Pradesh Congress election committee would be held here on Wednesday to start the process for selection of candidates and other related issues for the coming lok Sabha elections.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is also a member of the committee, would not be present in the meeting though he is on a two-day visit to his parliamentary constitutency Amethi from Wednesday.
Party spokesperson Virendra Madan said here that almost all the members of the committee would be present in the meeting to be held at the state party headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. AICC general secretary and in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Madhusudan Mistri would be chairing the meeting. The agenda before the meeting would be to discuss the reports sent by the district Congress committes and of the Central observers on the names of the candidates panel. The meeting could also send their approval to the Central election committee on the reports of the districts and the observers.
During the meeting, the committee could also set up sub-committees for different activities for the lok Sabha elections including campaign and manifesto. The election committee, announced on Saturday last, comprises of all the union ministers of the state besides other senior Congress leaders of the state. The committee comprises of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, UP Congress president Nirmal Khatri, UP legislature party leader Pradeep Mathur, union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma, Minister for External Affairs Salman Khursheed, Union Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, Union Minister of state for home R P
N Singh, Union minister of state for rural development Pradeep Jain Aditya,Union minister of state for human resources development Jitin Prasada, Chairman of the National Commission for SC P l Punia, Raj Babbar, Shiv Balak Pasi and Jagdambika Pal. Other members of the committee includes Begum Noor Bano, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Promod Tiwari, Ansuiyya Sharma, Kamla Sahini, Naseeb Pathan, president of Uttar Pradesh Women’s Congress Meera Singh and Prahlad Dwivedi.