PANAJI
The Congress released its first list of eight candidates for the 2022 State assembly elections featuring in it the Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat for his Margao constituency and three-term MLA Aleixo Reginald Lourenco for Curtorim.
The others featuring in this list are Sankalp Amonkar for Mormugao, Sudhir Kandolkar for Mapusa, Tony Rodrigues for Taleigao, Rajesh Verenkar for Ponda, Yuri Alemao for Cuncolim and Altone D'Costa for Quepem.
Other than Sudhir Kandolkar who has been picked for Mapusa, the candidates named by the Congress were on expected lines.
Kandolkar, formerly a BJP karyakarta, had switched to the Congress contested on its ticket at the 2019 Mapusa bye-election held following the death of former Deputy Chief Minister Francis D'Souza. He had however lost to D'Souza's son Joshua.
Congress becomes the first major political party to declare a set of candidates for the 40-member State assembly elections for which are due in February-March next year.
The Election Commission of India is yet to announce the schedule for this round of State elections in which four other States -- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur -- are also going into an election.
The list was released by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Mukul Wasnik, who said the candidates were selected by the party's Central Election Committee (CEC).
