MARGAO
With no sign of the Congress unveiling the candidate for the Benaulim seat and time running out with the Assembly election just around a month away, former minister Mickky Pacheco has decided to kick start his election campaign in Benaulim from Wednesday.
While conceding that the Congress has not declared the party candidate for Benaulim in view of alliance talks between the NCP and the Congress at the national level, Mickky denied that the delay was due to the presence of a host of ticket aspirants for the seat.
Mickky, however, cautioned that he has many options at his disposal, saying that he would take the right decision at the right time in the event the Benaulim seat is conceded to the NCP.
Addressing the media in the presence of Benaulim Block Congress president Menino Fernandes and others, Mickky announced that he is kick-starting his election campaign for the Benaulim seat on Wednesday.
He said his workers will move around the wards in the constituency in five-member groups in view of the Election Commission guidelines for the Goa Assembly polls.
Saying that time is running out given that the Election Commission has fixed polls for the Goa Legislative Assembly on February 14, Mickky said that the party knows that he is the only candidate who is capable to win the seat for Congress.
“I have around 5,000 personal votes with me. With the support of the party, I can easily win the seat," he said.
When the media drew his attention to the fact that his name does not figure in the first two lists of candidates of the Congress, Mickky sought to attribute the delay in unveiling the candidate for the Benaulim seat because of the NCP-Congress alliance talks in Delhi.
Benaulim Congress president Menino Fernandes openly batted for Mickky, saying that his survey shows that the former minister is the only Congress candidate capable of winning the Benaulm seat for the party.
