Bengaluru, Apr 10 (IANS): The Congress screening committee began meeting in the national capital to finalise the party's candidates for the May 12 Karnataka elections, a party official said on Monday.

"The screening committee is going through the applications to short list the candidates for the state assembly elections. The list will be submitted to the party's Central Election Committee by Tuesday to finalise the names by April 13," state party spokesman Ravi Gowda told IANS in Bengaluru.

The screening committee is headed by senior leader Madhusudan Mistry, with party MPs Tamradhwaj Sahu and Gaurav Gogoi as its members.

General Secretary and state in-charge K.C. Venugopal is an ex-officio member of the committee along with state unit president G. Parameshwara and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

Party President Rahul Gandhi had on February 25 set up a 43-member state election committee headed by Parameshwara to recommend names to the central committee for the selection of the candidates.

The party's state leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Veerappa Moily, S.R. Patil, K.J. George, D.K Shivakumar, Ramalinga Reddy and Dinesh Gundu Rao have participated in the meeting, which will resume on Tuesday.

"The party's central election committee will meet on Wednesday and Thursday to finalise all the 224 candidates," added Gowda.

Last date for filing nominations is April 24 and withdrawal on April 27.

"We have received over 1,000 applications till March 10 from a record number of aspirants to contest on the party symbol," a party official told IANS earlier.