New Delhi: The list of Congress candidates for the State Assembly elections will be released here on Monday evening, despite a crucial meeting of the high-powered central election committee of the party failing to finalise the list on Sunday.

A meeting of the committee, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, could not finalise the list at its meeting on Sunday morning, as it felt that the draft list of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) lacked adequate representation to youth and women. The central committee will not meet again to clear the list of candidates as the meeting had authorised KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, the Congress Working Committee member A.K. Antony and Veerappa Moily, who is in charge of party affairs in the State, to have a `re-look' at the list and get clearance from Ms. Gandhi.

All-India Congress Committee sources said the central committee `resented' the KPCC list which has sought to give the ticket to a majority from among the 63 MLAs.

The list reportedly had the names of some of those who had contested the Assembly elections 10 times before.

The central committee strongly felt that more representation should be given to young new faces and also women. However, it was not against fielding `winnable' MLAs again.

The panel's decision seems to have put the Kerala leadership in a fix as denial of the ticket to a selective group of MLAs will create problems back home.

Mr. Chandy and Mr. Chennithala separately discussed with the party president the emerging political situation in the State in the context of the agreement signed with the breakaway Democratic Indira Congress-Karunakaran (DIC-K), led by the veteran leader K. Karunakaran, for a poll tie-up and its merger with the Congress after the polls. — UNI

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