Priyanka Gandhi to Head Congress Screening Panel for Assam Polls

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been appointed chairperson of the party’s screening committee for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) announced on Saturday night.

AICC General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal said the party has constituted four-member screening committees for five states and Union territories—Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry—which are scheduled to go to polls in the first half of the year.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, AICC general secretary and Lok Sabha MP, will head the Assam panel as the Congress prepares to contest the elections in alliance with other opposition parties in a bid to wrest power from the BJP.

Her close aides Imran Masood and Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, both Lok Sabha MPs, along with Sirivella Prasad, have been appointed as members of the Assam screening committee.

Veteran leader Madhusudan Mistry will head the screening committee for Kerala, while former Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister T S Singh Deo has been named chairperson of the panel for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Senior leader B K Hariprasad will lead the screening committee for West Bengal.

The West Bengal panel includes Mohammad Jawed, Mamata Devi and B P Singh as members. For Kerala, Syed Naseer Hussain, Neeraj Dangi and Abhishek Dutt have been appointed. Yashomati Thakur, G C Chandrashekhar and Anil Kumar Yadav will serve as members of the Tamil Nadu–Puducherry committee.

The party said that AICC general secretaries in charge, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) presidents, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leaders and concerned AICC secretaries will serve as ex-officio members of the respective screening committees.

Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are expected in the coming months. Polls to the 126-member Assam Assembly are likely to be held in March–April.

Last month, the Congress joined hands with several opposition parties, including CPI(M), Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), CPI, CPI(ML) Liberation, Jatiya Dal-Asom (JDA) and the All Party Hill Leaders Conference (APHLC) to contest the Assam elections from a common platform.

Currently, the BJP holds 64 seats in the Assam Assembly, while its allies—AGP (9), UPPL (7) and BPF (3)—strengthen the ruling coalition. In the opposition, the Congress has 26 MLAs, AIUDF 15, CPI(M) one, and there is one Independent legislator.

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