Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (SP)

Bangalore, Mar 26: The Congress leadership appears to be in procrastination mode. After frequently postponing release of the list of its candidates for the Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, the party sources, which had earlier said the list would be out by Tuesday or Wednesday, now say the party leadership has decided to release the list by Friday March 27 evening.

The predicament is writ large on the faces of the party leaders who are aspiring for the party tickets. They are compelled to take part in election campaign, without knowing whether they would make it or not and also whether the candidate the party will choose are to their liking or not. While most of the other parties have released lists of most of its Lok Sabha candidates from the state, Congress Party, for some reason, is dithering from releasing the list.

The party on Wednesday held election rally in Kolar. The Gulbarga zone level rally is being held today. A rally was held on Monday at Davangere. Even after three successive rallies, the party pathetically, has not been able to make up its mind on its Lok Sabha candidates. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president R V Deshpande had declared a month back, that the party’s list of candidates would come out by the first week of March.

The BJP on the other hand, has released its list for 24 constituencies from the state and its state president D V Sadanand Gowda says, the other four candidates would be announced after the Congress comes out with its list. It is gathered, that the BJP wants to make caste-wise vote bank calculations before announcing these four candidates and depending on the candidates being fielded by the Congress, wants to make last minute changes if necessary, in its list.

Congress ticket aspirants are a worried lot. They do not want to lag behind in electioneering. At the same time, they do not want to spend money and manpower for a candidate other than themselves. In almost all the constituencies, disinterestedness is writ large on the faces of Congress workers, and the campaign is expected to pick up only after the party list comes out.