Deshprabhu joins race for NCP ticket

BY A GT REPORTER

PANJIM: A crucial meeting of the coalition partners - Congress and NCP - has been called at the Chief Minister's official residence at Altinho at 12 noon on Monday (March 30), to declare the candidate for the North Goa Parliamentary seat, which has been allotted to NCP.

A meeting held Sunday evening remained inconclusive after most of the leaders from both parties opposed Nirmala's candidature and surprisingly favoured former Pernem MLA Jitendra Deshprabhu. It is learnt that Deshprabhu had already left for New Delhi and expected to join the NCP if he was chosen as the candidate.

Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, GPCC president Subhash Shirodkar, NCP state president Dr Wilfred de Souza, Revenue Minister Jose Philip D'Souza, Tourism Minister Mickky Pacheco, Education Minister Babush Monserrate and Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes attended the meeting. The meeting was earlier scheduled at the residence of Speaker Pratapsing Rane at Altinho but was shifted to the Chief Minister's residence after the former expressed his inability to attend the meeting.

When contacted, Revenue Minister Jose Philip told GT that another meeting would be held today afternoon after which the NCP candidate would be declared. Though he refused to divulge details of yesterday's meeting, he admitted that both Nirmala and Deshprabhu's names figured during the meeting.

Meanwhile, the central committee of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) also met at Panjim yesterday and finalised the names of its president Pandurang Raut and Lavu Mamledar, a former police officer for North Goa and South Goa constituencies respectively.