Manmohan plays hard, sets terms

When the issue of his candidature came up at the Congress Election Committee CEC meeting on Friday, Singh said he would like to quot;discuss the issue with the party presidentquot;.

The list of candidates for three other Lok Sabha seats was obviously deferred though the CEC had cleared R K Dhawan New Delhi, Meira Kumar Karol Bagh and J P Agrawal Chandni Chowk in principle.

Singh reportedly conveyed to the high command that in politics public perception was more important than actual conduct. He said he was not against anybody being allotted party ticket from Sadar and Outer Delhi constituencies. Butthe sentiments and sensitivities of people must be considered. Congress had been losing South Delhi since 1989 by a margin of over one lakh votes. Sikhs form a considerable part of the electorate here. The CEC was to meet today to take up the list of candidates for the first phase of the Lok Sabha. But it was again deferred as no consensus could be evolved by the screening committees for various states. The CEC would now meet tomorrow.

In Haryana, the list is held up because of indecision on Hisar and Faridabad. In Faridabad, Avtar Singh Bhadana and Zakir Hussain are in the fray 8211; both backed by different factions close to 10 Janpath. Zakir is the son of Tayyab Hussain, a Congress minister in Rajasthan. He has the backing of Natwar Singh who is the party8217;s candidate from Bharatpur. Avtar Singh Bhadana had won it in 1991 on the Congress ticket. Om Prakash Jindal is a strong contender of Congress ticket from Hisar or Kurukshetra. The high command is keen to field him but the state unit chief is not.

InPunjab, supporters of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh are revolting. They threaten to go to the extent of forming a separate party if their camp is denied tickets in Ludhiana and Patiala. Gurkamal Kaur, Beant Singh8217;s daughter, met Sonia Gandhi on Friday and told her that while quot;intrudersquot; had swallowed the tickets, loyalists were suffering. Sonia has asked AICC general secretary Ambica Soni to sort out the issue.

In Rajasthan, the problem has arisen as senior leaders like Nawal Kishore Sharma, Ram Niwas Mirdha and others have yet given their consent to contest.For Chandigarh, a bitter battle is on between Indian Youth Congress president Manish Tiwari and Pawan Kumar Bansal.