Congress general secretary and MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is heading the screening committee for selection of party candidates for Assam Assembly polls, has rescheduled her two-day visit to the state.She will be now visiting the state on February 19-20 instead of February 18-19, party leaders said.
Priyanka Gandhi, who is the chairperson of the four- member screening committee, will be accompanied by other three- members of the committee Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, Imran Masood, and Sirivella Prasad. These three members are tasked with shortlisting candidates and steering internal consultations ahead of polls. Priyanka has put in place a new system where committee members are required to travel extensively in the state to get feedback on probable candidates.
“Generally, the screening committee meets the state election committee (SEC) in Delhi, and senior leaders from the state are called to the national capital. But what Priyanka Gandhi has done is that she has assigned five districts each to the three members of the committee and has directed them to travel to these districts to gather feedback from local leaders and other stakeholders,” a source said.
Ahead of her visit, an important meeting of the Election Committee of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) was held on Tuesday in Guwahati under the chairmanship of APCC President Gaurav Gogoi. The nearly 45-member committee, comprising all Congress Members of Parliament, Members of the Legislative Assembly, and senior leaders of the party in the state, held detailed discussions on the applications received for candidature in various constituencies. Extensive deliberations took place regarding the nature of the applications and the suitability of prospective candidates for each constituency, a statement issued by the party stated.
