SHILLONG: The Congress will be cautious in allotting party tickets for the next Assembly polls with winnability being a major factor in the selection of candidates.
Cabinet Minister and senior Congress leader Prestone Tynsong told reporters on Friday that in several constituencies on the outskirts of the city, the selection of candidates had gone wrong prior to the 2013 polls.
He cited the case of a few independents emerging victorious in Khasi-Jaintia hills though they were denied party tickets for the 2013 polls. “If the party was more calculative, we would have got majority on our own in 2013,” Tynsong said.
Learning a lesson from the past, Tynsong said the party will be now careful in allotting tickets to aspiring candidates as the Congress would like to get more seats than what it got in 2013 to secure majority on its own in the next Assembly polls due within a year.
In the 2013 polls, the Congress secured 29 seats out of 60, and later in 2015 during the by-election to Chokpot seat, which fell vacant following the demise of GNC legislator Clifford Marak, the Congress secured one more seat raising the tally to 30.
