Disagreement among factions over 20 seats appear to be holding the Congress to announce even the first list of candidates for the Uttarakhand Assembly elections, despite holding discussions in the national capital for around a week.
Sources said there is more or less agreement in 50 seats but the factions led by Harish Rawat and Congress Legislature Party leader Pritam Singh have competing claims over the remaining seats.
Both the factions have not taken kindly to the projections of the party's survey conducted in constituencies where their respective nominees have not come on top.
The screening committee has been meeting in the national capital for at least the past five days. The delay in the decision-making process is also having an impact on the campaign, sources said.
The party leadership has also not made up its mind on the constituency of Rawat, who "leads" the party's campaign though he has not been assigned as the Chief Ministerial face. Another reason cited by sources is the current flux in the political climate in the state where party crossovers are happening.
The hill-state is going to polls for all the 70 seats on February 14 with the last date for nomination fixed for January 28. Congress has already announced its first list for Punjab and Uttar Pradesh while it has released three lists for Goa.
Congress is hoping to usurp power from the ruling BJP in Uttarakhand where surveys showed a close contest between the principal opponents. In the 2017 polls, BJP won 56 seats garnering 46.51% votes while then ruling Congress was reduced to 11 seats with 33.49% vote-share while in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the saffron party won all the five seats with 61.66% votes and its main opponent getting 31.73% votes.
According to sources, Sahaspur is one of the seats yet to be decided where Pritam Singh's nominee Aarendra Sharma has an opponent in Rawat camp's Rakesh Kumar Negi. With two Muslim leaders also lobbying for the seat, the party will have to factor in minority votes, which are substantial in number.
In Raipur, Prabhulal Bahaguna and Mahendra Negi are in the race with sources saying both stand a chance. At the same time, there is also speculation that Heera Singh Bisht may be shifted from Doiwala to Raipur. In Dehradun Cantt seat, it is Youth Congress National Secretary versus the old guard.
The party leadership had managed a truce in the Uttarakhand state unit recently after Rawat tweeted that he was contemplating retirement from politics claiming that he was not getting cooperation from the state unit. He was also sulking over not being named the Chief Ministerial face.
Top party leader Rahul Gandhi then held a meeting with Rawat and other leaders in the state during which it was decided that Rawat will lead the campaign though the party stopped short of naming him the face.
Recently, the party also deputed senior leader Mohan Prakash as senior observer to Uttarakhand. Rawat has told the party leadership that the present in-charge Devender Yadav was siding with his rival factions, which the latter denied.
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