Bihar Assembly polls: Congress likely to finalise candidates in party election committee meeting today

New Delhi: The Congress is likely to finalise some of its candidates for the Bihar Assembly poll on Monday when the party’s central election committee may meet virtually. The Congress Screening Committee on Bihar met in Delhi on Sunday and is learnt to have discussed the names of probable candidates for the upcoming elections in the state. The meeting of the screening panel, headed by Avinash Pande, was attended by Congress in-charge for Bihar affairs Shakti Sinh Gohil, Bihar Congress chief Madan Mohan Jha and CLP leader Sadanand Singh among others. The central election committee (CEC) headed by party chief Sonia Gandhi is likely to meet on Monday to finalise some of the candidates that the screening panel will recommend. On Saturday, the Opposition Grand Alliance in Bihar announced a seat-sharing formula for the upcoming Assembly polls under which the Congress will contest 70 of a total 243 seats. The Bihar Assembly polls will be held in three phases on 28 October, 3 November, and 7 November, and the counting of votes will take place on 10 November. The nomination process for the first phase, under which 71 of the total 243 seats will go to polls, began from 1 October and will end on 8 October.