Jaipur: With 150 wards up for grabs in the newly redrawn Jaipur Municipal Corporation, Congress is facing a keenly watched ticket-selection exercise in the state capital, with senior members weighing in on candidates and ward-wise equations.Several senior Congressmen are involved in the ticket distribution exercise, including MLAs Rafeek Khan and Amin Kagzi, district president Sunil Sharma, Jaipur in charge Rohit Bohra, and former ministers Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Brij Kishore Sharma.The selection process has seen recommendations from Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge also, besides ex-ministers, sitting MPs and MLAs from outside Jaipur and party members from outside Rajasthan. With the candidates already finalised but the announcement being held back, competition for tickets in several wards has intensified.Bohra said the party followed a strict screening process and would not field candidates without a local connection to the wards. “For Jaipur, we have kept transparency of the highest order. No one from outside will contest from a ward. We have prepared a 19-point winnability table, which has been followed for every candidate,” Bohra said.Former minister Khachariyawas said the party had finalised its candidates but was waiting for BJP to announce its own list before making its Congress candidates public. “It is our strategy. We may have to revise names in some seats,” Khachariyawas said.Khan said elected MLAs were given greater authority in selecting candidates for wards falling within their constituencies, while he submitted recommendations for other wards also.The exercise has put the party’s organisational machinery under scrutiny as it seeks to balance the recommendations of elected representatives and senior functionaries with local equations and candidate winnability.The civic polls are significant for Congress as Jaipur, the state capital, remains one of Rajasthan’s key political battlegrounds.
