Congress clears 32 more names for Haryana Assembly elections, no talks on Vinesh

The names of wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat do not feature in the list of Congress candidates cleared so far, Dipak Babaria, AICC in-charge of the Congress for Haryana, told reporters after a meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) held here today. He added that there could be clarity on the issue (of the two wrestlers’ candidature) tomorrow.

The CEC cleared 32 candidates for the October 5 Haryana Assembly elections. With this, the number of candidates cleared by the Congress till now for Haryana rose to 66. Haryana has a total of 90 seats.

Kharge presided over the CEC meeting that was attended by Rahul Gandhi, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Haryana Congress president Udai Bhan and screening committee representatives such as Ajay Maken and Manickam Tagore.

On the proposed alliance with AAP in Haryana, Babaria said the matter was at a very “preliminary” stage. He added that the final list of Congress candidate was likely to be released in next one or two days.

The screening committee headed by Rajya Sabha member Ajay Maken had submitted to the CEC a list of 49 names yesterday and 34 names of which were cleared. The screening committee today submitted the list for the remaining 41 constituencies and the CEC cleared 32 candidates, Babaria said.

He said a five-member sub-committee comprising Madhusudan Mistry, TS Singh Deo, Babaria himself and two others as members would decide upon the candidates for the pending seats. The sub-committee would prepare a list that would be given the final approval by party president Mallikarjun Kharge.