Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Congress may announce the names of some candidates for the first time three months ahead of the assembly election. The party is holding a meeting on Monday to make a strategy, and all senior leaders of the party are taking part in it.
They may discuss the issue of announcing names of a few candidates three months before election.
The Congress generally announces its candidates till the last day of the filing nominations.
The list of candidates has never been declared much ahead of the poll dates.
But this time, the party wants to enter the election ring in an innovative way. A few leaders have been demanding that the names of the candidates for those constituencies, where the party is weak, should be declared as early as possible.
They say the party should announce the names of candidates, especially for those seats, where it has been losing polls for several years.
There are 60 seats where the Congress had to bite the dust. In-charge of these seats and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh, has advised state party president Kamal Nath to declare candidates a few months ahead of the polls.
According to sources in the party, Nath will take suggestions from other leaders, so all of them are supposed to take part in the meeting on April 17.
It may also be discussed what will be the right time for declaring the names of candidates for each seat.
Former minister Sajjan singh Verma, too, has raised the issue of declaring the names of candidates a few months ahead of the election, but Nath has to take a decision.
He has already conducted a survey to know the people’s perception about a candidate in a particular constituency.
The party is conducting another survey. Nath has said the tickets will be distributed on the grounds of the survey.
Therefore, the party will take a decision on distribution of tickets by weighing pros and cons.
According to a senior leader of the party, many leaders in the party have demanded that names of candidates should be announced as early as possible. The party is mulling over the issue.

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