TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Congress bigwigs –Pratapsing Rane, Churchill Alemao, Subhash Shirodkar and Manohar Azgaokar met perfunctorily to discuss names of candidates for the Lok Sabha seats for North and South Goa, at the Congress Pradesh Election Committee meeting Tuesday, even as eight names were already doing the rounds.
Though GPCC chief Shirodkar refused to give details, he told media that the party had received quite a few names from ticket (nomination) aspirants.
Even though Francisco Sardinha is the sitting South Goa MP, the names of former chief ministers Ravi
Naik, Luizinho Faleiro and Churchill Alemao are being whispered as claimants for the ticket while in North Goa those of Ramakant Khalap, Jitendra Deshprabhu and even BJP’s St Andre MLA Vishnu Wagh have been doing the rounds.
Congress’ Jitendra Deshprabhu who contested on the NCP nomination, lost narrowly last time against incumbent North Goa MP Sripad Naik.
However, though the Congress has been contesting the South Goa seat continuously, the North Goa seat has been left to its alliance partner in the last couple of elections from the time Dr Wilfred de Souza was the local NCP president.
The Congress has been reeling after the drubbing it got during the last assembly elections. Tuesday the party had block level meetings to reenergize itself ahead of the Lok sabha polls the face and after being given a rude reality check in the just concluded polls in the four states including Delhi where it sitting chief minister in Delhi lost miserably to Aam admi party leader.
Naik, Luizinho Faleiro and Churchill Alemao are being whispered as claimants for the ticket while in North Goa those of Ramakant Khalap, Jitendra Deshprabhu and even BJP’s St Andre MLA Vishnu Wagh have been doing the rounds.
