The Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) of the ruling Congress in Rajasthan has given a final shape to the guidelines for selection of candidates for the upcoming State Assembly elections. Candidates who had earlier lost by a margin of over 20,000 votes and those having registered two successive defeats are likely to be excluded from the panels of aspirants.
A meeting of the PEC was organised in New Delhi on Tuesday to deliberate on the procedure for selecting the candidates with the focus on assessment of their winning potential. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Pradesh Congress Committee president Chandrabhan and AICC general secretary in-charge Gurudas Kamat attended the meeting.
According to the party sources here, the guidelines will be formally released at the next meeting of the PEC to be held in Jaipur on September 8 along with separate deliberations for each division, in which the panels of aspirants for the party tickets would be decided.
The sub-committees of the PEC will visit the seven divisions in the State and interact with the local leaders who have staked claim for candidature for the Assembly polls. The PEC members, including AICC general secretary C. P. Joshi and some Union Ministers, reportedly agreed that outsiders seeking tickets from important Assembly seats would be discouraged.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has also disapproved of the practice of fielding “parachute candidates” in the constituencies with which they have virtually no connection.
Mr. Gandhi will launch the election campaign in the State at an Adivasi Kisan Sammelan in Salumbar, near Udaipur, on September 11.
