the goan I network
MARGAO
Three days after the party suffered a huge jolt when two of its legislators quit the party to embrace the BJP, Congress MLAs along with AICC General Secretary Goa desk Dr Chella Kumar and GPCC chief Girish Chodankar went into a huddle at the Congress district office here on Friday to chalk out a strategy to teach Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte a lesson and win back the Shiroda
and Mandrem seats with comfortable margins in the ensuing by-polls.
The party leaders, however, said it is too premature to unveil the names of the party candidates for the two seats, only saying many people and leaders will soon embrace
the party in the two constituencies.
After putting up at a resort at Candolim for a day, the scene shifted to South Goa on Friday when the Congress MLAs, barring Pratapsing Rane, attended a meeting at the party district office to chalk out an election strategy in both Shiroda and Mandrem. The MLAs also celebrated the birthday of party’s Velim MLA Filipe Neri Rodrigues at the district office.
Coming out of the near two-hour long meeting, Leader of the Opposition, Babu Kavlekar said the legislators had met to devise a strategy as Congress workers are all charged up to teach Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte a lesson. “We have decided to go to any extent to win both the seats where the Congress had defeated a sitting Chief Minister and a minister in the 2017 election,” Babu said.
Babu ruled out the possibility of any more MLAs breaking from the Congress to join the BJP. “We do not doubt any of our MLAs. We have all decided to work hard and win back the two seats,” he added.
The Opposition leader also gave a clean chit to the GPCC chief, saying that Girish Chodankar cannot be blamed for the defection. “Girish has done good work to strengthen the party after taking over its reins,” Babu said.
AICC General Secretary Dr Chella Kumar said the meeting discussed the overall strategy and how to go about fielding good candidates in both Shiroda and Mandrem, exuding confidence that the Congress will win both the seats with comfortable margins. “We cannot divulge the names of our candidates for the two seats. It is premature to even discuss the names of the candidates. Many people have shown interest. We expect many people to join the Congress in the coming days,” Chella Kumar said.
Replying to a question, he said “we are comfortable to win the two seats. We have seen people speaking against defections. As far as Subhash is concerned, he is a habitual defector. People will give a befitting reply to him whether he has defected for the constituency’s development or for some other reason”.
Saying the meeting has only discussed the modalities of how to go about in both the constituencies, Dr Chella Kumar said such meetings will now often taken place ahead of the bye-polls. To a question, both Dr Chella Kumar and Babu Kavlekar said that Pratapsing Rane could not attend the meeting since he was preoccupied with a religious ceremony at home.
