PANJIM: The Congress Party on Monday declared names of two candidates for the Zilla Panchayat (ZP) by-elections scheduled on October 16.
The party has fielded Leoncio Raikar for Davorlim ZP seat and Valent Barbosa for the Cortalim ZP constituency. Both the candidates had recently joined the Congress party. Both the seats fell vacant after Ulhas Tuenkar and Anton Vas resigned after being elected as MLAs.
Leoncio, son of former Davorlim-Dicarpale sarpanch late John Raicar had contested unsuccessfully the 2000 ZP elections as an independent candidate.
“The candidate for Reis Magos ZP constituency will be finalised as soon as possible,” said Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) senior vice-president M K Shaikh.
Meanwhile, the GPCC on Monday appointed convenors for the 22 Block Congress Committees, 11 in each district with immediate effect. The party had dissolved all Block Congress committees after the party’s eight MLAs joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on September 14. Most of the outgoing block presidents have now been appointed as convenors.
Meanwhile, Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) too announced candidates for all the three ZP constituencies going for by-polls.
RGP president Manoj Parab said that Andrew Rebello will contest from Davorlim, while, Leslie Gama and Sainath Korgaonkar will contest from Cortalim and Reis Magos ZP constituencies respectively.
He said that every political party has been fooling the people of Goa at the time of elections and also after polls and appealed to the people to support RGP, which he claimed, is the alternative for them.
Parab further said that the party will continue to fight for the interest of the State and for the welfare of the people.
RGP MLA Viresh Borkar too appealed to the people to support the regional party. He said that time has come for the people of Goa to be alert and to support those who have been fighting to protect them and the State.
