Ashwani Kumar accommodated in Punjab Cong poll panel

Former Union Minister Ashwani Kumar along with four others have found a place in the Punjab Congress Election Committee cleared by Congress President Sonia Gandhi today.
Gandhi had announced a list of 24-member Punjab Election Committee that included all former Chief Ministers, PCC Chiefs and Central Ministers and MPs from Punjab earlier.
The five members of the panel announced by Congress president include former Punjab Minister Ashwani Shekhri and Fatehgarh Sahib MP Sukhdev Singh Libra, besides AICC Secretaries K L Sharma and Kuljit Singh Nagra, also a Rahul confidant.
The Congress Screening Committee for Punjab is headed by party MP and spokesperson P C Chacko, while AICC general secretary incharge for the state Shakeel Ahmed, PCC chief Pratap Singh Bajwa and CLP leader Sunil Jakhar and Deepak Babaria are other members of the committee.

Among the other names included in the 24-member PEC of Punjab are state Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa, CLP leader Sunil Jakhar, AICC general secretary Ambika Soni, former Chief Ministers Capt Amarinder Singh, Union Ministers Manish Tewari, Preneet Kaur and Santosh Chaudhary, besides former deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Kaur Bhattal and party MPs and former PCC chiefs.
The all-important panel will screen the names of the candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections and forward them to the Congress high command for final consideration.
Congress has included leaders of various factions in the poll panel to placate some of them as the recently announced revamped jumbo list of Punjab Congress Committee had created a furore with many leaders accusing Bajwa of ignoring senior people and filling it up with his own men of little standing.