MARGAO
Eyebrows were raised in Congress circles on Saturday as office bearers of the South Goa District Congress Committee headed by President Joe Dias called on party MLAs with a plea to chose either GPCC Chief Girish Chodankar or former three-time MP Francisco Sardinha for the party ticket.
That Joe Dias and his office bearers did not discuss the name of Mahila Congress chief Pratima Coutinho with the party MLAs, indicates that the district committee has restricted its preference of candidates between Chodankar and Sardinha.
The delegation met Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, Filipe Neri Rodrigues, Wilfred D’Sa, Clafacio Dias, Reginaldo Lourenco and is believed to have spoken to senior MLAs Luizinho Faleiro and Ravi Naik over the phone.
The district president is believed to have told the MLAs that their feedback from the constituencies has revealed that both Chodankar and Sardinha would be strong candidates in the fray if the party decides to nominate either of them for the South Goa seat.
Joe Dias, however, made it clear to the MLAs that the district office bearers would go all out to support any candidate finalized by the party leadership, and their exercise of meeting the party MLAs individually was an attempt to bring to their notice the ground reality vis-Ã -vis candidate selection.
The latest exercise by the district Congress, which had recommended the name of Chodankar without any application form from the GPCC chief, has thrown up the question whether it was an attempt to project the state Congress chief for the ticket with three-time MP Francisco Sardinha coming under attack from the Mahila Congress over his age.
