Congress not to delay naming poll candidates

BANGALORE: After staring down the barrel following a series of drubbings in the Assembly byelections, the Opposition Congress has learnt a hard lesson - no last minute announcing of candidates. As a result, the party has begun its poll preparations well advance.The Central party high command has deputed ten Observers to all the 28 Parliamentary Constituencies with a task to identify potential candidates in each of the 224 Assembly segments. Besides these observers, the party has also assigned the task to strengthen the party in the state to four Union Ministers from Karnataka in the four revenue divisions. It may be recalled that the Congress lost all but two seats in the bye-polls held since 2008. “Elections will come sooner or later, but we want to be fully prepared to face them at any point in time. We have learnt our lessons by losing a series of polls by announcing candidates in the last minute. Though money played a major role in bye-polls, we don’t wish to repeat the same (announcing candidates in the last minute),” KPCC president G Parameshwar told Express.The party has implemented this by announcing candidates nine months in advance in Uttar Pradesh. “We have a similar strategy to announce candidates well in advance. This gives us enough time to resolve any differences. The appointments of observers is one such initiative to bring a positive change,”  he said.As per plan, observers, who have already toured their respective Lok Sabha Constituencies once, have been assigned the task of preparing a list of 5 to 10 potential candidates per Assembly segment by March 31.  It would then be referred to the State Election Committee and to the Central Election Committee of the Congress.“We want to mentally prepare workers  to get ready for polls. And these exercises of appointing observers and organising interactive meets including the general body meeting are aimed in that direction,” he said.