Cong list of candidates for U'khand polls by Jan 16: Rawat

Congress will come out with its final list of candidates for the Uttarakhand assembly elections by January 16, party leader and Chief Minister Harish Rawat said today.
However, he added that a consensus on the names have been made on 63 out of the total 70 assembly seats, while a decision on the remaining ones is still pending but will be made soon.
Rawat's remarks have come in the backdrop of talks doing the rounds that there is a discord between him and Congress state unit chief Kishore Upadhyaya over ticket allotments for the February 15 polls.
When asked, Rawat also denied any discord between him and Upadhyaya and said, "By January 16, our party will come out with the list of candidates."

Meanwhile, Upadhyaya too confirmed that names of candidates for 67 seats have been chosen and will be confirmed after approval from the Congress central election committee, subsequent to which the final list will be put out.
On BJP moving Election Commission over him holding a press conference at the chief minister's official residence, Rawat he was still the Chief Minister of the state and could interact with the media at his home.

"It is unfortunate that BJP is pressurising the state's Election Commission in this matter. BJP should apologise to the people of the state for this," he said.
He also accused the BJP of "trying to eat into the votes of Congress" in a "sponsored manner" by fielding certain candidates in the assembly polls. He claimed that BJP has entrusted two former MLAs with the responsibility for this who have been asked to "collect funds" anywhere between Rs one and five crore, depending on "the value of candidate".

He said, "This is like a surgical strike on the principles of democracy.