PANAJI: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has become the first political outfit to officially announce its candidates for the forthcoming state legislative assembly election in Goa, with four such candidates – two each in North and South Goan constituencies – declared on Tuesday.
The first list of AAP candidates for the 2017 state assembly election includes Valmiki Naik for Panaji, Ajitsingh Rane for Mayem, Molu Velip for Shiroda and Cruz Silva for Velim.
The AAP will continue the exercise of announcing names of its candidates for this election, in phases.
The political party has already announced that it will contest from all 40 constituencies in the state.
The political affairs committee of AAP cleared these four names on Monday night, for contesting election to the 40-member state legislative assembly, scheduled to be conducted at the beginning of next year.
Rane, who also heads the Goa Trade Unions’ Confederation, and Silva, who is the former sarpanch of the village panchayat of Ambelim, had joined the AAP, earlier this year. Molu Velip is the former aide of Minister for Industries Mahadev Naik.
Surel Tilve, the local spokesperson of AAP, who made the announcement at a press conference, said that Velip is a grassroots worker, who has built a team from a scratch, and the AAP would always honour such honest workers.
Dr Oscar Rebello, a state-based leader of AAP, speaking on the occasion admitted that Rane has travelled from Congress to Shiv Sena to AAP; however, further added that Rane has now realised that only the AAP can solve problems of the common man, for which he stands.
Dr Rebello further said that the candidates were screened through criteria like absence of criminal record, communal record and corruption record.
“The names which came from the local volunteers were screened by the screening committee and then sent to the Delhi-based political affairs committee for final approval,” he added, pointing out that the national AAP leaders would continue to guide its Goa unit; however, the leadership of this unit would emerge from among the people elected to power by Goans.
It may be recalled that the AAP had started preparations for the state legislative assembly election after national convenor of the party Arvind Kejriwal addressed a public meeting in the capital city, this summer.
Last week, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia and Health Minister of the national capital Satyender Jain toured Goa, holding public meetings and publicising the Delhi government’s governance model.