New Delhi:Congress Central Election Committee met here on Friday to finalise candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls.
The leaders discussed a total of 43 seats out of which almost 25 seats were cleared. The party had already released its first list of 48 candidates on Thursday evening. Another virtual meeting of the CEC is expected on Saturday.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary (in-charge, organisation) K.C. Venugopal, among others, attended the meeting at the AICC headquarters. State unit chief Nana Patole and AICC incharge Ramesh Chemnithala also attended the meeting.
Venugopal shared pictures of the meeting on X and said, “We, the MVA, are all set to sweep the upcoming Assembly elections!”
Addressing the media after the meeting, Chennithala said, “CEC discussed the pending seats in Maharashtra. Tomorrow there will be a virtual meeting of CEC, so by tomorrow evening all our candidates names will be released. MVA is United. We will fight this corrupt govt”.
Meanwhile, slamming the Mahayuti government’s “steadfast refusal” to conduct a caste survey and claimed that it adopted a “bluff and rule” strategy of repeatedly delaying action on social justice.
Chennithala said, “The non-biological Prime Minister and the Mahayuti government’s steadfast refusal to conduct a caste census has had real consequence for a number of Maharashtra’s traditionally disadvantaged communities,” he alleged.
Ramesh said in a post on X, “The effects of caste-based marginalisation were evident from these communities’ poor performance on Human Development Index indicators but they received no support from the Mahayuti government”.