Mallikarjun Kharge clears 39-member Bihar Congress poll panel

Patna: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has approved the constitution of a 39-member Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) of the Bihar Congress for shortlisting prospective candidates for the Oct-Nov assembly elections.Releasing the list on Tuesday, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said all MPs, MLAs and MLCs, AICC secretaries, central working committee (CWC) members, its permanent and special invitees from Bihar, along with heads of frontal organisations, would be permanent invitees to the PEC.State Congress president Rajesh Kumar, legislature party leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan and former state chief Madan Mohan Jha (MLC) feature in the top three positions.Other key functionaries named in the panel include Jitendra Gupta, Shakeel-U-Zamaan Ansari, Sanjeev Prasad Tony, Motilal Sharma, Kapil Deo Prasad Yadav, Anshul Avijit, Brajesh Kumar Pandey, Jamal Ahmed Bhallu, Manju Ram, Azmi Bari, Nagendra Kumar Vikal, Kailash Pal, Rajesh Verma and Nirmalendu Verma, among others.“The PEC members will shortlist applications of prospective candidates and prepare a panel for each constituency that falls in the party’s share after seat-sharing among the grand alliance partners,” said party spokesperson Rajesh Rathorre.He added that the final list would be forwarded to the state screening committee, which would further prune the names before sending them to the central election committee for final clearance.Seat-sharing discussions are currently underway in the grand alliance coordination committee headed by RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.