The Haryana Congress is likely to repeat all its sitting candidates, barring one, for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Speculation is rife among party circles that the MP from Sirsa, Atma Singh Gill, is likely to be dropped.

Sources said the name of former filmstar Sulakshana Pandit is also under consideration, among others, by the party high command as its parliamentary candidate from Sirsa. Pandit, a Scheduled Caste hailing from Dabwali in Sirsa, could be a suitable candidate from the reserved parliamentary constituency. The Indian National Lok Dal is likely to field former Haryana bureaucrat B D Dhalia from Sirsa.

With the departure of former MP Kuldeep Bishnoi from the party, the Congress now has eight sitting MPs from Haryana, including Kumari Selja from Ambala, Naveen Jindal from Kurukshetra, Dr Arvind Sharma from Karnal, Avtar Singh Bhadana from Faridabad, Deepinder Hooda from Rohtak, Rao Inderjit Singh from Mahendragarh, Jai Prakash from Hisar and Atma Singh Gill from Sirsa.

Three days ago, AICC general secretary and Haryana Congress incharge, Motilal Vora almost confirmed sitting MP Selja's candidature from Ambala again by appealing to the people there to vote for her. Vora's green signal to Selja, who is close to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, came as a big blow to HPCC president Phool Chand Mullana.

Confronted with the issue again at a press conference here,Vora admitted he had made the appeal in Selja's favour. Mullana, who was also present on the occasion, butted in to say Vora had not specifically said Selja would contest from Ambala again, while appealing in favour of her. But Vora made it clear that Mullana was better suited for party work.

Dealing a further blow to his ambitions, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said he will appeal to the party high command to make Mullana the party chief in the next term as well.

Sitting MP from Karnal, Dr Arvind Sharma, may look elsewhere if he is denied a ticket from Karnal. Last time, he had hob-nobbed with the BSP.

Sonepat is a constituency being eyed by most Congressmen, including Finance Minister Birender Singh, Power Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, All Mahila Congress president Krishna Gehlawat, MP Jai Prakash, Chief Parliamentary Secretary Ramesh Kaushik and MLA Jitender Malik. Kishan Singh Sangwan of the BJP is the sitting MP from Sonepat, but the Congress leaders feel they can bag the seat from the opposition. “It is an open seat for the Congress. We will definitely win from Sonepat,” claimed Hooda.

The names of Tourism and Forest Minister Kiran Choudhry or her daughter Shruti are also being speculated for the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat.