First meeting of PEC and Screening Committee of Congress in Gujarat on Sept. 11

Ahmedabad: The first meeting of recently constituted Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) and Screening Committee of main opposition Congress in Gujarat would be held on September 11 here, a senior party leader today said.

The meeting would be held quite close on heels of the announcement by Congress national vice president Rahul Gandhi on September 4 here during an event that the candidates for this year’s assembly polls in Gujarat would be finalized soon.

Senior party MLA Shaktisinh Gohil said that the joint meeting of the PEC and screening committee would be held on Monday (September 11).

The 4 member screening committee led by Balasaheb Thorat, a former Maharashtra minister and Former MP Meenakshi Natarajan, Congress Legislative Party leader in UP Ajay Lallu and AICC Secretary Girish Chodankar as the members was announced on August 31. The PEC of the party under state president and former union minister Bharatsinh Solanki was announced on August 25.

Notably the meeting would mark the formal beginning of the final candidate selection process of the party for all the 182 assembly constituency.

The party which had earlier claimed to announce the candidates a year in advance (by December 2016) could not do so though it has started various procedures in this regard long back.

The 43 sitting Congress MLAs are almost certain to be repeated from their current constituencies.

The assembly polls in the state were due to be held by December when the term of the current assembly expires.

DeshGujarat