Jaipur: The wait for the first list of Congress candidates for Rajasthan may be over soon as the Central Election Committee of the party is scheduled to meet on Wednesday morning in New Delhi. The state leadership including Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and party state president Govind Singh Dotasara have reached Delhi for the meeting of the Screening Committee on Tuesday.
"The Screening Committee will meet today and the Central Election Committee will meet on Wednesday morning to finalize the first list of candidates. However the time to release the list is to be decided by the party high command," said Gehlot before leaving for Delhi on Tuesday.
Panels to be put forth CEC
The Screening Committee formed for Rajasthan has been deliberating for the last three days to finalise the panels. These panels will be put before the Central Election Committee for discussion and to finalise the candidates.
Congress has already declared most of the candidates for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, but the delay in finalising the candidates for Rajasthan is being linked to the ongoing tussle between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot.
Although there has been a truce between the two they want to get tickets for as many of their loyalists as possible and due to this, the screening committee has to put extra effort into final the panels for seats in Rajasthan.
Gehlot accuses MLAs of taking money
Meanwhile, Gehlot reiterated the issue of the rebellion in 2020 and said that the MLAs who would have taken the money to topple the government are nowhere today. "In Maharashtra, money must have been taken to topple the government, in Karnataka, someone must have taken it, and in Rajasthan also, but now those who would have taken the first installment of ₹10 crore are nowhere," said Gehlot the media in Jaipur before leaving to Delhi for candidate selection meetings on Tuesday.
Gehlot said that our MLAs were not corrupt, and that is why our government survived. "It was s touch and go case for BJP as they need 3-4 MLAs only but the public was with us. If the public had been against us, half the MLAs would have left us," said Gehlot.
