The screening committee of KPCC which was held on Tuesday night, and attended by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister D.K.Shivakumar and other senior leaders, to vet the list of candidates, failed to arrive at a consensus with Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar reportedly pushing for different candidates for around six constituencies. The two leaders have now left it to the high command to take the final call.

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Party sources told this reporter that both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar were at loggerheads.  This has put the high command in a quandary.

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 In 2014 and 2019 parliamentary polls,  Siddaramaiah as Chief Minister from 2013 to 2018, and as the Leader of the Opposition in the State Legislative Assembly, had the final say in the selection of the candidates be it for the Assembly or the parliamentary polls but the presence of another power centre has changed all that.

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According to inside sources, another reason for the delay in the announcement of the list could be a decision to wait for the the BJP to release its list in the vain hope that sitting MPs who are denied tickets,  would come knocking on the Congress’ doors. It had happened in the Assembly election held last year when at least a dozen BJP sitting or former legislators joined the Congress Party after being denied tickets to contest. In view of this, the Congress Party has decided to adopt a wait and see approach, hoping to poach disgruntled candidates and field the winnables from the hand symbol.

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Meanwhile on  Tuesday, Congress released a second list of 43 candidates

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including Rahul Gandhi, who has been fielded from Kerala's Wayanad. Lok Sabha elections are due in a few weeks and the polling schedule is expected to be announced in the next 3-4 days.

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Key leaders who have figured in the 'Grand Old Party' second list are Nakul Nath (son of former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath) from Chhindwara, Vaibhav Gehlot (son of ex-Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot) from Jalore, Pradeep Tamta from Almora, Rahul Kaswan from Churu, and  Gaurav Gogoi.

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Both Gaurav Gogoi and Vaibhav Gehlot have changed their seats.

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Congress gave 76.7 per cent of tickets in its second list to candidates from SC, ST, and OBC categories. The next Central Election Committee meeting of the party will take place on March 15.

In the second list, Congress announced candidates from five states and one Union Territory. From Assam, the party declared 12 candidates, Gujarat 7, Madhya Pradesh 10, Rajasthan 10, Uttarakhand 3, and one from Daman and Diu.

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