MGP to support Cong nominees for LS polls

NT NETWORK

Panaji

Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party working president Narayan Sawant on Thursday said the MGP will support the Congress candidates for both the Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The MGP is not contesting the parliamentary elections, and hence decided to extend its support to the Congress candidates in both the seats.

The party had already announced to back Congress candidate Sudhir Kandolkar for the Mapusa bypoll. However, it has not yet decided on supporting the candidate for the Mandrem bye-election.

The party will take a call on the matter in the next four days.

“To defeat the BJP candidates, the central committee of the MGP has decided to back the Congress candidates for the Lok Sabha polls and extend issue-based support to the ruling coalition in the state. We are not severing ties with the BJP, but will teach it a lesson by campaigning openly for the Congress,” Sawant said after attending the consultative meeting of the MGP panel held in its city office.

“Our supporters and party workers had been angry over the removal of senior MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar from the state cabinet and the poaching of our two MLAs. Hence they urged us to work against the BJP candidates for the Lok Sabha polls and the byelections and support efficient and winnable candidates…,” Sawant explained.

He said the MGP decided not to field its nominees in the Lok Sabha polls so as to give advantage to the Congress candidates.

“We have a 12-13 per cent vote share in the state. Although the vote share is less but it is very loyal. In the 2017 assembly polls, the MGP candidates had polled 1, 13,000 votes,” Sawant claimed.

The central committee meeting was attended by Sawant, vice-president Ratnakant Mardolkar, secretary Pratap Phadte, and members Mahesh Panjikar, Sumit Verekar, Sridhar Mandrekar, Naresh Gawde and Krishnakant Divkar.