PANAJI: The core committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which met on Saturday, deliberated on the names of seven leaders of the party for zeroing in on the BJP candidate to contest the election for the Rajya Sabha member from Goa.
The seven names included four former MLAs of the party.
The election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Goa will be held on June 8, 2017. The process of filing of nominations for the Rajya Sabha seat will commence from May 22.
BJP sources said the party is yet to decide the candidate.
“We are trying to arrive on a consensus for our candidate, who would also be acceptable to the coalition partners of our government namely Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party,” the sources maintained.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and state party president Vinay Tendulkar will endorse the name of the candidate after discussing the name with the state election in-charge of the party for Goa Nitin Gadkari and national organisational joint secretary of the party B L Santosh.
The name will then be forwarded to the parliamentary board of the BJP for its approval.
Presently, the BJP has only 12 members in the state legislative assembly as against 16 of the main Opposition Congress party. However, three legislators each of the MGP and the GFP, and three Independent MLAs are supporting the BJP.
It is learnt that the core committee of the BJP discussed the names of its former MLAs namely Rajendra Arlekar, Sidharth Kunkalienkar, Damodar ‘Damu’ Naik and Vinay Tendulkar among others, as possible candidate of the party for Rajya Sabha election.
Sanjiv Desai, Sadanand Tanavade and Keshav Prabhu were also considered.
The announcement of the name of the candidate is expected during the beginning of the next week.
The six-year term of the office of Goa’s incumbent member of the upper House of Parliament Shantaram Naik is due to expire on July 28, 2017.
Polling for the election will be held on June 8 and the counting will be held on the same day at 5 p m.
