Rajasthan Congress to give tickets after consultations in Assembly constituencies
The Hindu
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said after attending a meeting of the State Election Committee that winnability would be the “first and last criterion” for the selection of candidates. The ruling Congress had recently announced that it would replicate the Karnataka model for the election by declaring the candidates in advance and countering the Opposition BJP’s propaganda aggressively.
The Congress in Rajasthan will distribute tickets to the candidates for the upcoming Assembly election after wide-ranging consultations by the members of the State Election Committee with the party leaders in the constituencies. The first list of candidates is likely to be released next month.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said after attending a meeting of the State Election Committee here on Saturday that winnability would be the “first and last criterion” for the selection of candidates. “We are going to follow the Karnataka model, where a 90-year-old candidate contested the polls and won. The party had recognised his winning potential,” he told reporters.
The ruling Congress had recently announced that it would replicate the Karnataka model for the election by declaring the candidates in advance and countering the Opposition BJP’s propaganda aggressively.
Mr. Gehlot said the Congress would win the Assembly polls with a heavy margin for a second term, based on its popularity among voters, because of the State government’s flagship welfare schemes. Rajasthan was showing direction to other States, where the ruling parties were incorporating similar schemes in their manifestos, he said.
Taking a dig at the BJP’s central leaders making rounds of Rajasthan ahead of the Assembly election, Mr. Gehlot said Opposition party seemed to have already surrendered before the polls. “The BJP is planning to fight the election on the face of the Prime Minister. This shows that they have already accepted the defeat. Will they take decisions on the State’s issues sitting in Delhi?” he said.
Besides Mr. Gehlot, Pradesh Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra, party’s State in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, co-incharges Amrita Dhawan, Qazi Nizamuddin and Virendra Rathore and former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot attended the State Election Committee’s meeting.
Mr. Dotasra said the State Election Committee members would visit the districts in groups to hold consultations with the District Congress Committee office-bearers and other party leaders in the constituencies. They will prepare panels of three to five potential candidates for each Assembly seat and submit them to the Pradesh Congress Committee.
“We are judges and therefore, cannot act like Mughals of a bygone era ... the writ courts in the guise of doing justice cannot transcend the barriers of law,” the High Court of Karnataka observed while setting aside an order of a single judge, who in 2016 had extended the lease of a public premises allotted to a physically challenged person to 20 years contrary to 12-year period stipulated in the law.