Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Credit: PTI Photo
The Congress has started scrutinizing more than 4000 applications from ticket seekers for polls to the 230-member Assembly in Madhya Pradesh and the first list of 90-110 candidates is likely to be announced by September 10, a member of the party's state election panel said on Monday.
On August 17, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party had released its first list of candidates from 39 seats it had lost in the 2018 state polls.
'For several seats we have got as many as 25 applications, while in some seats the number is five. There may be more than 4,000 applications at present. We will scrutinise them and come up with two to three probable names by September 2 when the party's screening committee (headed by Jitendra Singh) is expected to meet,' the Congress leader, who is also a former MP minister, told PTI.
'The names of probable candidates will then be sent to the party's parliamentary board which is going to take the final call. We are going to come out with the first list of 90-10 candidates by September 10,' he added.
As per party insiders, the list may include candidates for 66 seats the Congress has lost five times consecutively.
They said the MP election committee headed by state unit chief Kamal met on Sunday here but the new MP in charge Rnadeep Surjewala could not attend.