Agartala, Feb 7 (PTI) A three-member screening committee sent by the AICC visited Tripura and talked to prospective candidates for selecting party nominees for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, a senior leader said on Wednesday.
The high command will take the final decision about candidate selection as the party is part of the opposition bloc INDIA, Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee president Asish Kumar Saha said at a press conference.
The northeastern state has two Lok Sabha seats, West Tripura and East Tripura, and both are now held by the BJP.
“The three-member screening committee headed by Rana K P Singh arrived here on Monday. The committee members held discussions with the party’s senior leaders on Tuesday to know the ground reality,” Saha said.
Singh also met the prospective candidates for the Parliamentary elections at the Congress headquarters as part of preparing a list of the party nominees for two seats.
“The screenings committee will submit its report to the Central Election Committee to choose the party nominees for the state. However, the high command will take the final decision as we are part of the INDIA bloc,” he said.
The Congress had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections alone but fought last year’s Assembly polls in an understanding with the CPI(M)-led Left Front.
To a question, the committee member and AICC secretary Szarita Laitphlang said Priyanka Gandhi was scheduled to visit Tripura in December last year, but she could not make it owing to illness of her mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi.