Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 4 The Congress high command will take the final call on whether sitting party MPs should contest the upcoming Kerala Assembly elections, Congress Screening Committee Chairman Madhusudan Mistry said here on Wednesday, underlining that the issue involves a larger policy decision.
Mistry expressed confidence that the party leadership would take an appropriate view on the matter and indicated that the Congress candidate list is likely to be released by the end of this month.
He said the Screening Committee would examine multiple factors before finalising candidates and that it would be premature to comment on whether survey reports on sitting MLAs would be a decisive factor.
"Various aspects will be scrutinised in detail during the candidate selection process," he said.
Mistry is in Kerala to chair meetings of the Congress screening committee and to hold consultations with party leaders at different levels.
He is scheduled to meet senior leaders over the next two days.
The state leadership had earlier asked District Congress Committee (DCC) Presidents to submit panels of probable candidates, which will form a key input for the Screening Committee's deliberations.
The high command team led by Mistry had already held discussions with leaders across the state at various organisational levels on his previous visit.
However, it remains to be seen whether the Congress will announce its first list of candidates on or before Friday, the day the Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan is set to embark on a statewide yatra, a move that is being closely watched within political circles.
Alongside the finalisation of the Congress list, the state party leadership has also initiated seat-sharing talks with its allies in the United Democratic Front (UDF).
In the 140-member Kerala Legislative Assembly, the Congress had contested 93 seats in the 2021 Assembly elections.
The IUML had contested 25 seats, the Kerala Congress-M 10, the RSP five, the NCK two, while the Kerala Congress-Jacob, the CMP, and the RMPI contested one seat each.
Two Independents were also supported by the front.
This time, the Forward Bloc is likely to be allotted one seat, while the candidature of two-time former Left-backed independent legislator P.V. Anvar has already been cleared for the Beypore constituency.
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