Congress to finalise candidates for Haryana Assembly polls today, interim party president Sonia Gandhi to chair meet

New Delhi: The Central Election Committee (CEC) of Congress will meet on 30 September to finalise the list of candidates for the Assembly elections. The interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi will chair the meet. Ahead of the CEC meeting on 30 September, the party had a Screening Committee meeting on 28 and 29 September to shortlist the prospective candidates. [caption id=“attachment_4543761” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi. PTI[/caption] According to the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) chief Kumari Selja, the party will also consider the name of sitting MLAs while giving tickets. On the other hand, many leaders are not ready to come on board. Former HPCC chief Dr Ashok Tanwar is keeping a distance from the meetings held in the last few days. On Wednesday, a Campaign Committee meeting was called at the Congress War Room but Tanwar, who is a member of the Manifesto Committee, was absent from the meet. On 10 September, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) appointed Kumari Selja and Captain Ajay Singh Yadav as the head of the election and campaign committees respectively for Haryana. The Congress president on 4 September had appointed Selja president of the state unit and also named former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader and Chairman of the State Election Committee. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced the single-phase voting for the 90-member Haryana Assembly elections on 21 October and the counting of votes is scheduled on 24 October. Haryana has a strength of 90 seats out of which 17 seats are reserved for SCs. There are 1.82 crore registered voters in the state out of which 1.07 lakh are service voters. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government is in power in Haryana after the party won 47 out of a total of 90 seats in the 2014 Assembly elections, while the Congress was restricted to just 15 seats.