Team Herald
PANJIM: Giving clear indication that party will now bank on young leadership, the Congress on Friday announced that more than 50 percent of party tickets would be given to young faces during the coming 2017 Assembly elections.
“We assure the people of Goa that congress will introduce new faces and more than 50 percent of tickets would be given to them during the Assembly election. We have many young new aspiring faces,” Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Luizinho Faleiro said while addressing media persons.
Refusing to comment on whether party would consider granting tickets to sitting MLAs, Faleiro said that “the country has more than 65 percent of young population and the people’s aspiration is that the new faces have to get into the politics.”
The Congress president said that recently some young Congress leaders were trained by the Jawaharalal Nehru National Training Institutions on the ideology of the party.
The Congress currently has seven MLAs in the 40-member Assembly. It had recently sacked one of its MLA and former Minister Atanasio Monserrate for anti-party activities and for his increasing closeness with the ruling BJP.
Further, the Congress has called for a public meeting at Lohia Maidan under the leadership of Margao MLA Digamber Kamat on November 14, wherein party would administer an oath of tolerance to all the people present, “to strengthen peace, progress and prosperity.”
Pointing to the ongoing nationwide crises related to beef ban and Dadri killing (Uttar Pradesh), Faleiro said that ever since the Narendra Modi-led government took over, the country is witnessing increasing assault on secular tenants, secular fabric of the constitution and secular democracy. “What is alarming and frightening is that the government of the day is silent. The prime minister himself is silent on all these issues,” he commented.
“The party (BJP) that has come to power in last one and half year is responsible for all kind of intolerance and hatred across the country,” Faleiro added.
