The Congress will release the complete list of candidates for the State Assembly elections by Sunday evening, KPCC president Mallikarjun Kharge has said.

Speaking to reporters at the end of the Central election committee meeting of the party held here late on Saturday evening, Kharge said the panel has completed its exercise of choosing candidates for all the 224 constituencies. While 174 names have been released so far, the rest of the names would be released by Sunday, he added. With this, the CEC has completed its task and it would not meet further.

The CEC, chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi,  held discussions on the political situation while completing the selection of candidates. However, the Jaffer Sharief incident was not discussed, Kharge told reporters at the end of the three-hour meeting.

Kharge, who attended the meeting along with former chief minister Dharam Singh besides AICC Karnataka in charge Prithviraj Chavan and screening committee chairman Digvijay Singh, hoped that the senior leader would withdraw the resignation letter he dispatched on Saturday.

Asked about the protests against the selection of candidates, Kharge said it was natural that such protests were taking place in a big party like Congress. “In earlier elections too, we had seen such protests. Wherever influential Congressmen have rebelled, we will pacify them and make them work for the party. I am hopeful of that”, he remarked.