Team Herald
PANJIM: With hardly 24 hours left for the process of filing nominations for the Zilla Panchayat (ZP) elections to begin, the Congress is yet to take a call on contesting the polls on party lines.
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The legislative wing of the Congress had resolved against contesting on party symbol alleging there is no level-playing field. However, the executive members and office bearers of the party want to fight the elections under party banner.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Girish Chodankar has been authorised by the party to take a final decision considering sentiments of majority. To take a final call on this issue, Chodankar and Leader of Opposition Digamber Kamat chaired party’s executive committee meeting on Tuesday.
Addressing the media persons after the meeting, Chodankar said that the sentiment of the workers is that they are charged up to defeat the BJP. “There is lot of anger amongst the voters and party supporters against BJP government over issues such as Mhadei, mining, financial crisis, etc. So we will respect the sentiments of the workers,” he said.
Chodankar said that he would announce the decision on Wednesday after consulting the MLAs.
Apart from Kamat, none of the Congress MLAs — Pratapsingh Rane, Luizinho Faleiro, Ravi Naik and Alexio Reginaldo Lourenco, attended the meeting.
Earlier, Kamat said that the workers are of the view that party should contest the election on its symbol in those constituencies, where it is strong hold and has winnable candidates.
“In rest of the constituencies, workers want us to tie up with independent candidates,” he said.
He said that the executive committee has authorised the party president to take a consensus decision.
The GPCC executive committee had on November 8, 2019 resolved to contest the ZP elections on party lines.
