Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, who were allegedly involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage, are serious contenders for Congress tickets from Sadar and Outer Delhi respectively.

When the issue of his candidature came up at the Congress Election Committee (CEC) meeting on Friday, Singh said he would like to "discuss the issue with the party president".

The list of candidates for three other Lok Sabha seats was obviously deferred though the CEC had cleared R K Dhawan (New Delhi), Meira Kumar (Karol Bagh) and J P Agrawal (Chandni Chowk) in principle.

Singh reportedly conveyed to the high command that in politics public perception was more important than actual conduct. He said he was not against anybody being allotted party ticket from Sadar and Outer Delhi constituencies. Butthe sentiments and sensitivities of people must be considered. Congress had been losing South Delhi since 1989 by a margin of over one lakh votes. Sikhs form a considerable part of the electorate here. The CEC was to meet today to take up the list of candidates for the first phase of the Lok Sabha. But it was again deferred as no consensus could be evolved by the screening committees for various states. The CEC would now meet tomorrow.

In Haryana, the list is held up because of indecision on Hisar and Faridabad. In Faridabad, Avtar Singh Bhadana and Zakir Hussain are in the fray - both backed by different factions close to 10 Janpath. Zakir is the son of Tayyab Hussain, a Congress minister in Rajasthan. He has the backing of Natwar Singh who is the party's candidate from Bharatpur. Avtar Singh Bhadana had won it in 1991 on the Congress ticket. Om Prakash Jindal is a strong contender of Congress ticket from Hisar or Kurukshetra. The high command is keen to field him but the state unit chief is not.

InPunjab, supporters of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh are revolting. They threaten to go to the extent of forming a separate party if their camp is denied tickets in Ludhiana and Patiala. Gurkamal Kaur, Beant Singh's daughter, met Sonia Gandhi on Friday and told her that while "intruders" had swallowed the tickets, loyalists were suffering. Sonia has asked AICC general secretary Ambica Soni to sort out the issue.

In Rajasthan, the problem has arisen as senior leaders like Nawal Kishore Sharma, Ram Niwas Mirdha and others have yet given their consent to contest.For Chandigarh, a bitter battle is on between Indian Youth Congress president Manish Tiwari and Pawan Kumar Bansal.