Karnataka elections: On final list of candidates, Congress stuck in a loop

The Congress failed to reach a consensus on its list of candidates for the Karnataka assembly election. The party is stuck in a loop over whether to field the rebel JD(S) candidates or not.

The other point of contention was on whether to field tainted legislators and also shunt out the old guard who are not in with a winning chance. Sources say that the Congress has finalised the list in terms of at least 190 candidate. There however appears to be no consensus on the remaining candidates as yet.

Deliberations in this regard would continue on Sunday as well and the party would hope to announce the list at the earliest. The list of candidates was supposed to have been released on Saturday but differences among senior leaders further delayed the process. The process of filing nominations would begin on Tuesday.

With no consensus being reached as yet, the high command has told senior Karnataka leaders including Siddaramaiah to defer their campaign programme and stay back in the national capital. The meeting is being held at an undisclosed location in Delhi.

"We will have two more rounds of meetings and by Sunday afternoon, names of all the candidates will be announced," Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president G Parameshwara told reporters after a three-hour meeting chaired by Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday evening.