Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Mohinder Singh Kaypee said: “The exercise for finalising the candidates is on and the list will be submitted soon."

This move aims at giving candidates ample time to campaign.

Manish Tewari, spokesperson of the party who is also pitched as the Congress candidate from the Ludhiana constituency, said, "The AK Antony report suggested that the Congress should declare its candidates early."

Tewari lost the last Lok Sabha elections to SAD(B) candidate Sharanjit Singh Dhillon by a slim margin and one of the reasons attributed to his defeat was that his candidature was announced quite late in the day, thus giving him less time to campaign.

However, the million-dollar question is who is authorised to draft the Congress list in Punjab. While Kaypee is the president of the PPCC, former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh heads the campaign committee.