Rahul Gandhi, M Kharge At Congress Meet To Decide Karnataka Poll Candidates

A meeting is underway for the selection of candidates for the Karnataka Assembly elections at the party president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence in the national capital as the party is yet to announce the names of candidates for 58 seats.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also arrived to attend the meeting.

The party's Central Election Committee has met at least four times and held deliberations on all the candidates for the total 224 assembly seats, but is yet to declare 58 more candidates.

The party had declared 124 candidates in its first list and another 42 candidates in the second list.

The Election Commission on March 29 announced that the Karnataka Elections for 224 assembly seats will take place on May 10, and the counting of votes on May 13.

With the Karnataka Assembly polls drawing near, Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday appointed a fifth working president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee in the form of former Lok Sabha BN Chandrappa.

While Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar is the KPCC president, the party already has 4 other working presidents in the form of Ramalinga Reddy, Eshwar Khandre, Saleem Ahmed and Satish Jarkiholi.

Chandrappa was elected a Lok Sabha member from Chitradurga in 2014-19.

The ruling BJP currently holds a majority in the Assembly with 119 seats while the Congress and the JD(S) have 75 and 28 seats respectively.

All three key political players in the state -- BJP, Congress and the JD(S) -- have been exchanging barbs as their poll campaign moves through the gears.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)