New Delhi, January 4— Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been appointed chairperson of the party’s screening committee for the selection of candidates for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections, as the Congress steps up preparations to challenge the ruling BJP in the state.
The All India Congress Committee announced late Saturday night the formation of screening committees for five states and Union territories scheduled to go to polls in the first half of the year. The four-member committees will finalise candidates for Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, AICC general secretary and Member of Parliament, will head the Assam screening panel. She will be joined by Lok Sabha MPs Imran Masood and Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, along with Sirivella Prasad as members. The Congress is expected to contest the Assam elections as part of a broader opposition alliance aimed at unseating the BJP-led government.
Senior Congress leader Madhusudan Mistry has been appointed chairperson of the screening committee for Kerala, while former Chhattisgarh deputy chief minister T S Singh Deo will head the panel for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The screening committee for West Bengal will be led by B K Hariprasad.
The West Bengal panel includes Mohammad Jawed, Mamata Devi and B P Singh as members. For Kerala, Rajya Sabha MPs Syed Naseer Hussain and Neeraj Dangi, along with Abhishek Dutt, have been appointed to the committee. Yashomati Thakur, G C Chandrashekhar and Anil Kumar Yadav will serve as members of the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry screening committee.
The Congress clarified that the party’s general secretaries in charge of the states, Pradesh Congress Committee presidents, Congress Legislature Party leaders and AICC secretaries attached to the respective states will act as ex-officio members of the screening committees.
Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are due in the coming months, with polling for the 126-member Assam Assembly expected in March–April. In Assam, the Congress is part of a multi-party opposition alliance that includes CPI(M), Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, CPI, CPI(ML) Liberation, Jatiya Dal-Asom and the All Party Hill Leaders Conference. The BJP currently holds power in the state with 64 MLAs, while its allies together have 19 seats. The Congress has 26 MLAs, AIUDF 15, CPI(M) one, along with one Independent legislator.
