The Congress leadership on Sunday chose to defer discussions about seats for which relatives of senior party leaders were seeking tickets, even as the Central Election Committee (CEC) of the party cleared the names of candidates for around 100 seats in the ensuing Assembly election in Maharashtra. The Congress will contest 174 of the 288 seats in the state.

While the CEC went through the list of candidates for all seats to be contested by the party in Maharashtra, there was no discussion on the seats where the panel of candidates included relatives of party leaders, it was reliably learnt. The Congress was also learnt to have decided to make a serious endeavour to give tickets to women on at least 10 to 15 per cent of the seats.

While the Congress High Command was, in principle, said to be opposed to giving tickets to relatives of leaders, the party leadership is in a dilemma given the fact that President Pratibha Patil’s son Rajendra Shekhawat has staked claim for Amravati, said party sources. If Shekhawat is given the ticket, the Congress High Command might find it difficult to deny it to others like Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s son, Union Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s daughter, former Union Minister A R Antulay’s son-in-law, Himachal Pradesh Governor Prabha Rau’s daughter, state PCC chief Manikrao Thakre’s son and party leader Datta Meghe’s son — and the list goes on.