SHIMLA:  It is now over to a 10-member Congress Screening Committee headed by Deepadas Munshi, which will “screen the potential Congress Candidates for the 68 assembly seats for the coming state assembly elections.

According to the party sources, the Himachal Pradesh state election committee met in New Delhi today. The members of the committee discussed the mindboggling 1347 names of candidates, who had sought the party tickets against 68 seats for the upcoming elections.

The committee has learnt to have prepared panel of candidates for each Vidhan sabha seat for consideration for the screening committee. 

The state committee faces an uphill task of finalizing the “candidates, who can win the elections against the formidable foes from the BJP and new entrant AAP”.

No doubt, Congress is ahead of BJP in "selection of its candidates". But the party is behind BJP in hoardings and publicity  campaigns as BJP government  has already launched aggressive publicity campaign along the highways, public places and on social media and the like.  

The meeting was attended by Pratibha Singh, Anand Sharma, Mukesh Agnihotri, Sukhvinder Sukhu, Asha Kumari, Kaul Singh Thakur, Viplove Thakur, Ram Lal Thakur, Harsh Mahajan, Dr Dhani Ram Shandil, Sudhir Sharma and other members of the committee.

The fact that over 1347 candidates have sought the party tickets, in itself is a huge figure, posing a multilateral challenge for the high Command to keep them in good humour and together for galvanizing party cadre for the common cause of as to how to win the elections.

The number of ticket seekers affords opportunity for the party  prefiguring  a favourable mood.  But opponents can open doors for ambitious “power seekers” for forging rebellion or  facilitating exodus by offering them lollipops to join their parties, caution experts.   

But there are prospective two or three potential candidates for each seat who can click the right button for the Congress.

Groupism and cult figures are well known within the  Congress. This is in public domain  that this or that candidate belongs to  “Raja group, Sukhu Group, Anand Sharma group, Kaul Singh or the like”.

Congress has lost two MLAs- Lakhvinder Rana and Pawan Kajal- to BJP.

BJP is still waiting in the wings to engineer more dissensions and defections in Congress once the party finalise its candidates by the end of this month or so. BJP did it in Uttarakhand elections, it did recently in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, warn analysts.

BJP will leave no stone unturned to accomplish its “mission repeat”. And Congress political fortunes  are stake to win Himachal Pradesh to counter BJP’s narrative that the party had been spreading in the country after BJP won UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa.

The analysts opine that as of now BJP appears to be weaker in Kangra and Shimla Lok Sabha constituencies, the two game changer districts, while the party is on even keel with Congress in Mandi and Hamirpur Lok Sabha seats- each having 17 state assembly seats.

BJP had  lost Mandi Lok Sabha, it had lost  three assembly seats-   Fatehpur in Kangra, Jubbal Kotkhai and Arki-  in Shimla Lok Sabha,  to Congress in the last by-election.   

Congress won these four seats by demonstrating a show of unity and strength and Congress candidate Pratibha Singh, rode high on sympathy factor for her husband, late Virbhadra Singh in Mandi Lok Sabha giving a big jolt to the BJP at the state and Centre.     

Congress this time can ill-afford to field “candidates, who are “paratroopers”, or who are “big name dropper of their bigwig masters”, or candidates who have “no mass contact and acceptability”.

 As for now it is over to the Central Screening committee headed by  Deepa Das Munshi which will screen the names and send it to High Command.

Other members of the committee are  Umang Singher, Dheeraj Gurjar,  HP affairs incharge Rajiv Shukla, PCC President Pratibha Singh, Leader of opposition Mukesh Agnihotri, president of election campaign committee Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, co-incharge Sanjay Dutt, Tejinder Pal Singh Bittu and Gurkirat Singh Kotli.

The committee is likely to meet in this month- end. The last call however will be taken by the party High Command which will consider the selection of candidates made by the screening committee.

Though there is some kind of a larger agreement over the choice of candidates on about 35 seats, but the party leaders have different choices over remaining 33 seats fraught with dissensions.    

While BJP would not blink not even a moment trying not to exploit the situation while the AAP is on hunt for the faces from the Congress or the BJP, who would be denied the party tickets.

For Congress, it is a multilateral challenge to keep its boat swimming in a right earnest in case a political turbulence strikes the electoral field.  

The party cannot afford losing its valuable leaders or genuine ticket seekers ahead of elections.