New Delhi, Feb 4: Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, Assembly Speaker Pratapsinh Rane and PCC chief Subhash Shirodkar figure in the first list of 22 Congress candidates for the state Assembly polls next month.
While Kamat has been nominated from Margao, Rane has been nominated from Poriem and Shirodkar from Siroda.
Ministers renominated include Manohar Ajgaonkar from Pernem-sc, Atansio T M Monserrate from St Cruz, Ravi Naik from Ponda and Vishwajeet Rane from Valpoi.
Vishwajeet is the son of the Assembly Speaker who had served as chief minister for several years. Former Chief Minister Churchill Alemao has been nomination from Navelim.
Goa Assembly is a 40-member House and Congress has left seven seats to its alliance partner NCP. Congress campaign manager Mauvin Godinho said the second list would be announced tomorrow.
The party has also decided to forge a pre-poll alliance with the NCP who would be given 7 seats to contest.
Godinho said the second list will have more new faces unlike the first, which has retained old ones except for one.
The name of Victoria Fernandes, the lone sitting woman MLA of the Congress, does not figure in the first list.
She had won the last election from St Cruz Assembly constituency.
This time the party has fielded its Taleigao MLA Babush Monserratte from St Cruz.
“The high command must have thought that they will go for a change (in St Cruz),” Goa Congress chief Subhash Shirodkar told reporters when asked about Fernandes' name missing from the list of nominees. Fernandes, when contacted, said she was upset with the party's decision.
“I will hold a meeting of my supporters today to decide the future course of political action,” she said.
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