New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Sonia Gandhi on Monday approved several committees ahead of the Assembly polls in Goa. Girish Chodankar has been retained as the state president and former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat will continue as the Congress legislative party leader while Alexio Sequeira is the Working state President.
Former Chief Minister Luizinho Falerio has been appointed Chairman of the Election coordination committee with M.K. Sheikh as convener.
Campaign committee to be headed by Reginaldo Lourenco and Sangeetha Parab as co chairperson.
Former CM Fracisco Sardinha has been made chairman of the Finance committee and Pramod Salgaocar as co chairperson. Manifesto committee is to be headed by Ramakant Khalap and Publicity committee by Chandrakant Chodankar.
The surprise missing is Francisco Xavier Pacheco, popularly known as Mickky, who was tipped to be made the working President of the Goa Congress. Mickky was in Delhi and had formally joined the Congress.
Mickky speaking on the phone from Goa on Friday had said, "I want to settle the people in the Congress who have been with me for a long time and so I will meet the Congress leaders in Delhi soon."
Sources said that Mickky had met Kamal Nath who had been instrumental in his joining the Congress and also had met P. Chidambaram, Dinesh Gundu Rao and K.C. Venugopal in Delhi.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief J P Nadda on Tuesday asked the Congress national leadership to clarify their stand on whether they support the remarks on Kashmir and Pakistan made by party leaders in Punjab. Nadda said that the silence of the Congress leadership will be seen as being implicit to such objectionable remarks.
The farmers union leaders had earlier pointed out that Punjab had failed to hike sugarcane SAP in proportion to Haryana over this period, causing fiscal losses to them.
The Punjab Congress leaders who have distanced themselves from the so-called festering revolt in the party are: Kuldeep Vaid, Dalvir Singh Goldie, Santokh Singh, Angad Singh, Raja Warring and Gurkirat Singh Kotli, all MLAs, and Bhalaipur Ajit Singh Mofar, a former MLA.
Gurbachan Singh (55) was a relieved man after he welcomed his three sons at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport here. They were among the 78 Afghan- Indians who were evacuated from Kabul to Tajikistan on Monday and to Delhi on Tuesday afternoon.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters along with former Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram, Gandhi said: "The Prime Minister and the BJP said that the Congress had done nothing in last 70 years. There is a list here of all the assets that the Congress has helped build using the public money.
Accordingly, a special Air India flight from Kabul landed at the IGi airport here on Tuesday carrying 44 Afghan Sikhs, who brought three copies of Guru Granth Sahib with them.
