No TMC, Janata Dal this assembly poll

Is Mamata Didi’s TMC no more interested in the Goa Assembly elections? Or, is there any delay in Nitish Kumar’s Bihar Express chugging in at Goa, even as the process of filing of nomination papers for the February 4 nomination papers got underway on Wednesday.

| JANUARY 12, 2017, 05:02 AM IST
the goan I network
MARGAO

Candidates owing allegiance to these two parties had all  lined up before the Salcete Returning Officers in the 2012 Assembly poll  to file their nomination papers. Even as a host of political parties,  ranging from the Aam Aadmi Party to Goa Forward party and the Goa Su Raj  Party have made its presence felt in Salcete’s countryside ahead of the  February 4 Assembly poll, nothing has been heard from Mamata Didi’s TMC  or Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal, which had fielded many a candidates in the  taluka in 2012.
When The Goan contacted TMC 2012 Margao candidate, Savio  Coutinho to shed light on the TMC’s electoral plans in Goa, he said he  had severed all ties with the Mamata Didi party after 2012.
Sources said that Mamata Didi’s close association Maria  Fernandes, who had taken the initiative to bring the TMC in Goa in the  2012 Assembly election, had approached many past candidates for  suggestions how to revamp the party ahead of the 2017 electoral battle,  but in vain.
It is learnt that most of the leaders, who were associated  with the TMC, had severed ties with the party after former PWD  Minister Churchill Alemao had taken over the reigns on the eve of the  2014 Lok Sabha polls. The TMC had fielded candidates in Benaulim,  Margao, Fatorda, Velim and Cuncolim, but it came a  cropper.
On the other hand, the Janata Dal-U had also taken an  electoral plunge in Goa Assembly election in the 2012 election under the  leadership of then party president John Philip Pereira. When contacted,  John Philip said that he has quit the party after the last election  since he did not endorse the policies of the Bihar-based party.
While nothing has been heard of the TMC and Janata Dal  parties this time round in Salcete countryside, new entrants, the  AAP, Goa Forward party and the Goa Su Raj Party, are all bracing up for  the ensuing battle of the ballot.

After 2 decades, UGDP will not be in fray this time

MARGAO: For the first time in over two decades,  Salcete’s oldest political party, the United Goans Democratic Party will  not be in the fray in the February 4 election for the Goa Legislative  Assembly.
The 23-year-old political party, which had first contested  the Assembly election in the year 1994, has decided to stay away from  the ensuing electoral battle. The reason is simple: Though the party  leadership comprising of ideologue Adv Radharao Gracias attributed the  decision to the fact that the party doesn’t want a split in the secular  and non-BJP votes, sources in the know said the party was  bereft of any organisation to make a dent in the election.
More ever, the party no longer enjoys the advantage of the  Two Leaves symbol, after the party was de-recognised post 2007, when the  outfit failed to poll certain percentage of votes.
The UGDP had won three seats in its debut in the 1994  election and had a representative in the Assembly till the 2002  election, before the arrival of the Save Goa Front in the 2007 election  pushed the regional party into oblivion.
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