Party officially announces Pala, Saleng’s candidature
NEW DELHI/ SHILLONG, March 8: The AICC on Friday announced the names of sitting Lok Sabha member Vincent H Pala and party MLA from Gambegre Saleng A Sangma for the Shillong and Tura parliamentary seats, dashing all hopes of a combined Congress-TMC force taking on the NPP in the western region of the Meghalaya.
AICC general secretary KC Venugopal made it clear that there would not be any alliance in Meghalaya with TMC, but kept the option open in neighbouring Assam and West Bengal.
“We are trying our maximum to go with the INDIA alliance everywhere, but there are some issues in West Bengal and Assam and we are trying to sort them out,” he said at the press conference where the names of 39 candidates were announced.
“The Congress is very clear…we are here to reduce the BJP’s seats at the maximum level. We are ready to sacrifice anything to fight the BJP, but we are expecting the same level of cooperation from other partners also,” Venugopal said.
Besides Pala and Saleng, the AICC’s first list contains high-profile names like former AICC president Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram and Venugopal from Alappuzha (all in Kerala).
Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel will be the party candidate from Rajnandgaon.
The list also includes the names of candidates for six seats in Chhattisgarh, seven in Karnataka, 16 in Kerala, four in Telangana and one each in Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Lakshadweep.
Meanwhile, after facing a setback at the hands of their INDIA bloc partners, the Meghalaya Pradesh Trinamool Congress is now gearing up to finalise its candidates for the two seats in the state.
TMC Parliamentary Party leader Mukul Sangma told The Shillong Times on Friday that they will meet on Sunday to finalise if they will put up candidates in both the Lok Sabha seats.
“We have a meeting in Kolkata on Sunday where we will take a call,” Mukul said while adding that TMC has to follow due procedure so that the candidate before being recommended goes through a process.
“It is a national party so we are working on this. It cannot be a whimsical choice and precisely because of that we have constituted an election committee,” he added.