HK Patil to head Kerala, Digvijaya Singh TN & Puducherry screening panels

New Delhi, March 2 (IANS) Former Minister in Karnataka and in-charge of Maharashtra HK Patil will head the Kerala screening committee while former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijaya Singh will be heading the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry screening committees of the Congress.

Along with HK Patil, Dudhila Sridhar Babu and Praniti Shinde have been made members while Tarique Anwar, General Secretary of the party in-charge of the state will be ex-officio member along with Ramesh Chennithala, Oommen Chandy, Mullipaly Ramchandran.

In Kerala the Congress is heading the UDF alliance and is pitted against the LDF headed by the CPI-M.

Digvijaya Singh will head the screening committees for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Former Goa Chief Minister Francisco Sardinha and K Suresh are members along with Dinesh Gundu Rao, state in-charge, KS Alagiriand V Narayansamy, former Chief Minister of Puducherry and AICC secretaries of the state.

In both the states the Congress will contest elections in alliance with the DMK and is pitted against the BJP-AIADMK alliance in Tamil Nadu and the NR Congress-BJP alliance in Puducherry.

The screening committee will recommend a panel of candidates to the CEC which will finalise the candidates of the party.