Cong to Monday announce candidates' list for Delhi polls

The Central Election Committee of Congress today finalised the list of around 60 candidates for the December 4 Assembly polls here, which is set to be released on Monday.
Certain clarifications will be sought from the candidates shortlisted for the remaining 10 Assembly seats following which their names, too, are likely to be cleared.
The Congress Central Election Committee is chaired by party President Sonia Gandhi.
"The names were finalised today. The list will be announced on Monday," sources said.
They said that the names of 41 sitting MLAs had been cleared for the upcoming electoral contest. Congress has a total of 43 MLAs in the current Assembly.

The Screening Committee of the party, headed by Union Minister V Narayanasamy, held a series of meetings to finalise the list of probables for all the constituencies.

The applications of two sitting MLAs - Dayanand Chandila (Rajouri Garden) and Asif Mohammed Khan (Okhla) have, however, been kept pending, sources said. The two MLAs are facing criminal charges.
A meeting of the Central Election Committee on October 28 had decided that the names of Congress candidates for the December 4 Assembly polls would be announced post Diwali.
The Screening Committee had earlier decided that those who had lost an Assembly election by a margin of 10,000 votes would not be considered for a poll ticket.

It was also decided that candidates who had lost municipal corporation polls by more than 2,500 votes, too, will be overlooked on the same basis.
There is already a decision within Congress against giving tickets to anybody facing serious criminal charges in the five states going to Assembly polls later this year.
Besides, Narayansamy, other members of the Screening Committee are Bhubaneshwar Kalita, Shakeel Ahmed, DPCC chief JP Agarwal, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Kuldip Nagra.
Around 1,600 Congress workers had applied for tickets.
BJP has so far announced candidates for 58 constituencies and has left four seats for its ally, Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal).