Date:16/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/16/stories/2008041650040100.htm

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Congress hopefuls head for Delhi

Special Correspondent

List of 650 candidates forwarded to the AICC
Central Election Committee to announce
225 names

BANGALORE: The Congress ticket aspirants, numbering around 650, whose names have been cleared by the State Election Committee of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, have left for New Delhi along with hundreds of their supporters to pressure senior leaders to give them the B form for the Assembly elections to be held on May 10. The final list of 225 candidates will be short listed by the Central Election Committee.

The KPCC office here was deserted because most of the leaders and hangers-on have left for the national capital to canvass for their candidates.

The Screening Committee, headed by the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, includes the former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh and KPCC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge, apart from the Union Ministers such as A.K. Antony, Vayalar Ravi and Prithviraj Chavan, who is party in-charge of the State.

But the High Command, the sources said, had reportedly kept S.M. Krishna, C.K. Jaffer Sharief, Veerappa Moily and Siddaramaiah out of the purview of the Screening Committee to avoid groupism, which it feared would result if all the State leaders were left to interfere in the selection of candidates. Such a situation might probably end up in a fiasco in the elections, the sources added.

In the 2004 Assembly elections, the AICC had formed the Screening Committee with Mr. Krishna and the then KPCC president B. Janardhan Poojary as well as the then Water Resources Minister H.K. Patil.

Although Mr. Patil was removed from the list, he was reinstated as a member day later. This precedent had given hope to those supporting the inclusion of leaders such as Mr. Krishna into the committee, the sources said.