Congress candidates to be decided by Sept 25

PATNA: The second leg of the two-day candidate selection process of the state Congress for all the 243 assembly seats that the party has decided to contest on its own steam would get into full gear from Sunday.
The party's central leaders would issue their guidelines to the state unit's 18-member apex body Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) on the first day.
It is learnt that the party's high command has made up its mind to release the names of the selected candidates for each of the 243 seats at one go at the state headquarters at Sadaquat Ashram on any day between September 20 and 25.
"The announcement of the names of the candidates for the seats would not be as per the phase of the poll," said a source, adding: "Instead, all the names would be released on one day." The six-phase election to the state assembly would begin on October 21 and end on November 20.
Given the urgency of the situation, the five-member central team AICC general secretary and in-charge of the party's Bihar affairs Mukul Wasnik, AICC general secretary and chairman of the central screening committee (CSC) B K Hariprasad, member (CSC), C P Joshi, AICC secretary in-charge, Bihar, Sagar Raika and AICC chairman of the party's minority department Imran Kidwai would take part in the PEC meet. The party's state chief, Choudhary Mehboob Ali Qaiser, would preside, said the state Congress media department chairman Prem Chandra Mishra.
The 18-member PEC has the state's senior leaders who are aware of the political dynamics of their respective areas Ashok Kumar, Dr Shakeel Ahmed, Sadanand Singh, Chandan Bagchi, Ramjatan Sinha, Anil Kumar Sharma, Mahachandra Prasad Singh, Asrarul Haque, Rajani Ranjan Sahu, Shakeelujjaman Ansari, Ramdeo Rai, Awadhesh Kumar Singh, Vijay Shankar Dubey, Shyama Sinha, Kripanath Pathak, K K Tiwari and Sanjeev Prasad Toni, among others, Mishra said.
The respective district Congress committees (DCCs) have already sent the panels of names for each seat under their jurisdiction. The party's central team would discuss the nitty-gritty of the selection process and also decide the criteria to be adopted, apart from resolving the question if every constituency would have a panel of candidates. They would also look into some other related issues, Mishra added.
The names so shortlisted empanelled or single would go to the CSC that also has Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Ashok Kumar and state chief as its members. Finally, the cleared names would land on the table of the Central Election Committee headed by party president Sonia Gandhi. "After her stamp, the names would be finally announced," Mishra said.