Confused Congress extends CEC meet in Karnataka as DK Shivakumar, Siddaramaiah face off

Confused over the final decision regarding seats distribution for Karnataka Assembly elections 2023, the Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting, which was supposed to conclude on Wednesday, has been extended by a day. This has reportedly come up amid political faceoff between the party's Karnataka state president DK Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah over the seat distribution in some constituencies. 

As per reports, the Congress party is yet to announce candidates on 100 constituencies. The party's CEC held a meeting on Wednesday to finalise the list of the candidates, but the list couldn't be finalised.

According to the sources, out of the remaining 100 constituencies, candidates for 30-35 constituencies have been finalised, since on these seats the party had a single ticket aspirant. But for the remaining 65 constituencies there has been lobbying from both DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah, who are reportedly fielding in favour of their supporters. 

Now, the CEC meet will again be held on Thursday under the chairmanship of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge. The All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief has now got the responsibility to bring both the warring factions on the same table and convince them on a particular candidate for each constituency. 

Efforts are being made to satisfy both the factions and hand over the party's tickets to deserving aspirants, so that they can further launch their election campaign in the state soon. 

Senior Congress leader and MP Randeep Surjewala said, "Before 11 am tomorrow, a list (of candidates) will be released. The CEC will continue its decision on the remaining few seats tomorrow at 2.30 pm. My question to BJP is why are they scared, why haven't they released a single name?"