The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Mahila Congress seeks one seat in every district

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Thursday, Apr 10, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Mahila Congress seeks one seat in every district

Special Correspondent

Women stage dharna at KPCC office
Candidates’ list for first phase before April 16

Bangalore: A large number of Mahila Congress workers on Wednesday greeted Prithviraj Chavan, party in-charge of the election work in the State, and Vayalar Ravi, party observer, with a dharna in front of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee office demanding that one seat in each of the 29 districts be reserved for women in the Assembly elections.

Led by Mallajamma, MLC, Mumtaz Begum, former Bangalore Mayor, and Magadi Kamalamma, the women raised their voice when the leaders accompanied by KPCC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge were getting into a bus that was to take them for the first meeting of the election committee.

Earlier, addressing a press conference, Mr. Kharge said the committee would hold preliminary discussions on the guidelines to be adopted for selecting candidates from the 2,800 applications.

Party leaders such as Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal and Union Minister of State for Power and Commerce Jairam Ramesh and Mr. Ravi would be involved in framing the guidelines.

Mr. Kharge said the list of candidates to be fielded in the first phase of elections slated for May 10 would be announced before April 16.

The KPCC observers for the districts and the former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler have toured the State and elicited information about the winning candidates.

The meeting, he said, would deliberate on Thursday also on various demands/suggestions that the former Ministers/ MLAs and MPs and those who were defeated in the recent elections with narrow margin should also be considered.

Mr. Kharge added that the party was of the view that more youth and women should be given priority.

He denied that the former Minister V. Somanna had resigned from the party.

He also denied that leaders belonging to one caste were leaving the Congress and added some others were joining the party.

Mr. Kharge said that those, who have been convicted for offences would not be given ticket.

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