SHILLONG: The Congress is most likely to announce its list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls ahead of Republic Day. Speaking to the media here, after successive meetings of the Pradesh Election and Manifesto committees, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said the state unit of the party has conveyed its desire to the central leadership to complete the exercise before Republic Day.
Sangma pointed out that the state unit of the party has completed the exercise and the list has been more or less finalised.
The names would now be placed for approval before the Central Screening Committee and the list will be announced with the approval of the AICC President, he said.
According to Sangma, there are one or two constituencies where the names of the candidates will be finalised within the next 24 to 48 hours.
Responding to a query about the four Independent MLAs who want to join Congress, Sangma said that the party has examined their candidature and out of them a few could appear in the final list of candidates.
The probability of the Chief Minister contesting from two Assembly constituencies – Songsak as well as Ampati – was also discussed in the meeting.
BJP waits for PM’s return
There will be further delay in releasing the list of BJP candidates.
The state BJP president, Shibun Lyngdoh, said on Tuesday that the list for all the 60 candidates was forwarded to the central election committee and it was up to it to release the list in parts.
Earlier, it was reported that the first list of 20 BJP candidates will be released on Wednesday.
Central BJP leader Nalin Kohli said no list will be released on Wednesday
as the meeting of the committee and the Parliamentary board to be attended by the Prime Minister and the BJP president is yet to be held.
The meeting will be held only after the Prime Minister returns from Davos.
