Gehlot to head panel to short list party's candidate in UP

Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will head Congress' screening committee for short listing party candidates for the high-voltage elections in Uttar Pradesh, where the issue of its alliance with incumbent Samajwadi Party is yet to be clinched.
Besides Gehlot, party MP Sushmita Dev and All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Deepak Babaria are the other members of the panel formed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her party vice president-son Rahul.
The committee will scrutinise and recommend names of probable candidates to higher ups in the party for taking final call.
The committee has been formed a day after the AICC declined to rule out its alliance with the Samajwadi Party in the "highly evolving and rapidly transforming" scenario.

Two days ago, Rahul Gandhi had kept people guessing on the alliance question, remarking that the election in the politically crucial state will be an "exciting affair".
"Uttar Pradesh mein maja aayega (it will be an exciting affair)," an upbeat Gandhi had said while delivering valedictory address of Congress' 'Jan Vedna' meeting against note ban here then.
The country's largest state with 403 assembly segments goes to polls in seven phases stretched between February 11 and March 8.