TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Even as the deadlock over the Cortalim seat continues, the Congress is all set to announce the name of ST candidate Caetan Xavier for the seat, much to the dismay of the alliance partner NCP.
The NCP is demanding Cortalim seat and has refused to budge from its stand – a move which is being looked at as revenge against the Congress election campaign manager Mauvin Godinho.
Sources said that the Congress will defy this and go ahead to announce Caetan’s name for the seat.
There is a growing resentment within the NCP and if talks fail, they will go it all alone in polls.
NCP co-ordinator Dr Praful Hede, however, said that the decision on Cortalim has blocked the alliance talks and is confident of wresting the seat.
“The decision on Cortalim will be now taken by our President Sharad Pawar,” he said adding “We have conveyed to them that there are no winning seats for NCP in the list.”
Sources in the party say the NCP has demanded Mandrem, Siolim and Mayem.
“The Congress wants the NCP to field Rudresh Chodankar in Mayem while the NCP wants to field Roy Naik,” sources say.
Meanwhile, the Congress leaders have said that the first list of Congress candidates would be out by tomorrow.
The Congress Screening Committee chairman Oscar Fernandes said that the Congress Party’s Central Election Committee has cleared the
He said that the list will be released as soon as the AICC president signs on it.
AICC in-charge of
The Congress was supposed to announce the list of candidates on Friday but sources say there was no unanimity on seat-sharing with NCP.
Brar stated that the list has been almost finalised in a meeting between UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel and Oscar Fernandes, Friday afternoon.
Brar also claimed that the alliance with NCP has also been settled even as the NCP officials have denied this.
Asked how many seats would they allot to alliance partners NCP, he replied “it is around 6 to 7”, still unsure on the number.
On the Cortalim seat too, he stated that it has been almost settled but refused to give details.
