Lucknow, June 6 (IANS) The ‘Mission 2012’, launched by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi to bring the party back to power in Uttar Pradesh, also includes a well laid out system for selection of candidates for each of the state’s 403 assembly constituencies, a party leader said Sunday.
‘An exhaustive interview of the applicants will form the most important part of the selection process, which would remain strictly transparent,’ Congress observer and Rajya Sabha member Shadi Lal Batra told IANS.
He ruled out any question of ‘extraneous factors’ like ‘sifarish’ (recommendation) by senior party functionaries or anybody else.
‘The party leadership has decided to be absolutely objective in the selection of candidates and that is the reason why we have commenced the exercise two years ahead of the election,’ he said.
Batra, who was among the ten special observers handpicked by Rahul Gandhi to accomplish his Mission 2012, has been entrusted with the responsibility of 41 assembly constituencies in and around Lucknow.
The other nine observers would also get down to business in their respectively assigned areas within the next one week. They have been told to submit their detailed reports latest by the end of October.
The first round of interviews took place Sunday with some 20 aspirants for Lucknow, while more aspirants would be interviewed Monday onwards.
‘The idea is to judge not just the calibre of the applicant, but his sincerity and commitment to the party and also his aptitude for public life,’ Batra said.
