About three years ahead of the next Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress has initiated the process of identifying its candidates. The ruling party at the Centre wants to declare their names about a year before the polls. The party is holding surveys to identify constituency-specific issues and also prepare a list of potential candidates in every constituency who can be “groomed”, according to party sources.

At the party’s state Coordination Committee meeting in Lucknow last week, which discussed the action plan for “Mission 2012”, it was decided that the party would identify about 150 to 200 “winnable” Assembly constituencies. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi will then tour these constituencies to mobilise the people as also party workers long before the Assembly elections. The Congress has also started identifying constituency-specific issues around which the party would seek to mobilise the people.

The Congress has apparently taken a cue from BSP supremo Mayawati who prefers to declare her party candidates much in advance, even though many of them are dropped and replaced subsequently at the time of polls.

“The Central Election Committee will declare the names of our candidates a year before the election. Our entire campaign, which will also be launched quite early, will revolve around these candidates,” said a senior Congress leader involved in decision making.

The A K Antony Committee, which had been constituted by the Congress president in early 2008 to suggest a roadmap for the party for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, had earlier recommended that the party should declare its candidates three months in advance for Assembly elections and six months ahead of Lok Sabha elections. These recommendations were, however, put under the carpet in subsequent elections as the Congress continued with its old practice of announcing candidates till the last date of filing nomination papers.

... contd.