The Congress on Monday set up a screening committee for the upcoming Assam assembly elections and appointed former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan as its chairman. Chavan is a part of the 'Group of 23' Congress leaders who had written to party chief Sonia Gandhi demanding an organisational overhaul and internal elections for every post.

"The Congress president has constituted the following Screening Committee for the forthcoming assembly elections in Assam with immediate effect with Prithviraj Chavan as the chairman and Kamleshwar Patel and Dipika Pandey Singh as members," a party statement said. Other members of the committee are ex-officio. They include AICC general secretary in-charge of Assam Jitendra Singh, PCC president Ripun Bora and CLP leader Debabrata Saikia, it said.

AICC secretaries Anirudh Singh, Prithviraj Prabhakar Sathe and Vikas Upadhyay are also ex-officio members. The committee will screen candidates for the assembly polls and make recommendations to the Central Election Committee. Chaired by Gandhi, the Central Election Committee will make the final decision on party candidates.

Elections to the 126-member Assam Assembly will be held in three phases on March 27, April 1 and April 6. The counting of votes will be taken up on May 2. The Congress is looking to regain power in the northeastern state that the party ruled for 15 years before being ousted by the BJP in 2016.