Ujjain: More than 12 local Congress workers, including MLAs and party functionaries, sought ticket for Ujjain parliamentary seat during rayshumari (exercise to take opinion) held here on Wednesday. All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary and Madhya Pradesh co-in-charge Sanjay Kapoor (Uttar Pradesh) arrived for the exercise in the afternoon.
An extended meeting was organised for the purpose at Ksheer Sagar area located district headquarters at Rajiv Bhavan. However, observing that the situation may turn awkward Kapoor changed the schedule and after giving a brief speech he asked the ticket aspirants and their supporters and others to meet him in groups or individually in a closed door chamber of the party office.
As soon as Kapoor started the proceedings, junior party workers and fresh ticket aspirants suddenly got enthusiastic and started lobbying for themselves. They were seen approaching the senior leaders as well as neutral functionaries to garner their support for ticket. Prominent among those who claimed ticket include MLAs Ramlal Malviya and Mahesh Parmar, ex-minister Babulal Malviya, ex-MP Satya Narayan Pawar, Prahalad Verma, Deepak Mahere, Jitendra Goyal, Jitendra Parmar, Jitendra Tilkar Nana and Sunil Kacchwai.
District Congress Committee presidents Kamal Patel (rural) and Mahesh Soni (urban), MLA Dilip Singh Gurjar, ex-MLA Rajendra Bharti, senior leaders Manohar Bairagi, Pratap Mehta, Rajhajoor Singh Gour, Azad Yadav and others also met the observer and made their suggestions. During informal talks with the reporters, Kapoor said that he is doing such type of survey for 8 Lok Sabha seats of Malwa-Nimar regions and will submit the report to AICC by the month-end. He said that win-ability will be the only factor for selecting the party candidate.
He clarified that neither former MP Premchand Guddu, who joined the BJP recently, nor those who fought the Assembly elections as independent candidate will be taken back in the Congress before Lok Sabha elections. He claimed that the party will repeat its performance of recent assembly polls.
