The Congress Central Election Committee headed by Party President Sonia Gandhi held a day long meeting to finalise candidates names for the Lok Sabha polls. Party insiders said that there was no consensus over controversial names of former Railway minister Pawan Bansal, former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan and Meera Kalmadi, wife of tainted leader Suresh Kalmadi. Chavan and Bansal resigned over alleged scam and corruption allegations. Candidates whose names have been finalized include sitting MPs from West Bengal; Deepa Das Munshi ( Raigunj), AH Khan Choudhury (Malda South), Abhijeet Mukherjee ( Jangipur), Mausam Noor ( Malda North) , Adhir Ranjan Chowdhry (Bahrampur) and Somen Mitra. The latter was decided by the Primaries conducted in Kolkata North constituency
According to Congress sources, eight seats have been left aside in Uttar Pradesh for the Ajit Singh led RLD, an existing ally of the UPA. While about half the total seats (40 odd) have been cleared in UP, in Bihar where the party has a pre-poll alliance with the RJD, eight of the 12 have been cleared.
Earlier in the day, when questioned about the possibility of fielding tainted names like Pawan Bansal and Ashok Chavan in the polls, Congress spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said, "Unlike sitting ministers in Gujarat government, both Bansal and Chavan have never been chargesheeted. They resigned on moral grounds." He clinched his argument by stating, Morals and Modi never travel together." The next round of the CEC will be held on March 12.
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