Team Herald
PANJIM: Reacting to a series of allegations made by the Bharatiya Janata Party regarding Arvind Kejriwal and his governance in Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Goa has said that there are decent, honest and honorable members of BJP in Goa who already have or are in the process of deserting the saffron party and joining AAP for clean governance.
Addressing media persons, AAP leader Dr Oscar Rebello said the party is ready to accept the challenge given by the BJP for a debate at an open place where all Goans should be invited and be allowed to pose direct questions to both the parties.
Dr Rebello said that issues like garbage, rampant availability of drugs, mushrooming casino gambling culture, collapsing law and order situation and corruption under the BJP government are not only matters for debate but absolute positions of fact that the people of Goa are witnessing.
BJP had stated that AAP MLAs in Delhi have been allegedly involved in corruption cases and some of them were also arrested by the police. Gupta said that the Modi government at the Centre is foisting false cases against their leaders which the courts are dismissing as frivolous.
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First list of candidates
in early September
Commencing the process of finalizing candidates in all 40 constituencies, AAP said that the first list of candidates will be announced in the first week of September and the complete list will be out by the end of October. AAP will become the first party to announce all 40 candidates over three months prior to the State polls.
Speaking to the media, AAP National Secretary Pankaj Gupta said that active volunteers from each constituency will recommend the names of candidates. These names will placed before the screening committee which will select three to five names that will be sent to the National Political Affairs Committee that will finalize the candidate. “Party will give tickets only to those on the list recommended by the volunteers in the first stage. Tainted persons with corruption charges or criminal backgrounds won’t be given a ticket,” Gupta said. He said that even after finalizing the candidates, if anyone is found to have any serious charges against them, they will be dropped from the list. “We will either withdraw the candidature or replace the candidate. We will leave our seat vacant but we won’t field a corrupt candidate,” Gupta said.
