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The Congress on Saturday announced its list of candidates for the Goa assembly elections.
The list consisted of at least 14 defectors and three alleged scamsters.
The party, however, has left four seats unannounced -- Saligao, Siolim, Tivim and Mapusa -- as it intends to leave it to the Nationalist Congress Party if the ongoing talks for alliance succeed.
The list consists of five former chief ministers, three former deputy chief ministers and 12 former ministers. Most of them had come to power by joining hands with the opposition.
Topping the list is Ravi Naik, who was the deputy chief minister in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government till he resigned on Friday morning. With him are four others -- including former Union law minister Ramakant Khalap -- who left the Congress and later staged a homecoming.
Ex-BJP ministers Sanjay Bandekar, who had quit the Congress in October 2000 to join the saffron brigade, has been welcomed back. Bandu Desai, who left much earlier to join the BJP, has also got a ticket.
The only defector who has not got a ticket is Jose Philip D'Souza, the first one to quit the BJP government soon after the dissolution of the House on February 27.
Dayanand Narvekar, Somnath Zuwarkar and Mauvin Godinho -- chargesheeted in the bogus cricket ticket scam, co-operative bank scam and the power rebate scam respectively -- have also been considered 'fit' to contest the assembly elections.
Francisco Sardinha Subhash Shirodkar, Alexio Sequeira, Victoria Fernandes and Francis Silveira, who had split to topple the Congress government in November 1999, were also taken back into party fold
Among the former Congress legislators, only four had not defected during the game of musical chairs that began in 1990. Pratapsingh Rane, Nirmala Sawant, Luizinho Faleiro and Jitendra Deshprabhu. They have all been retained.
The party, however, has also awarded tickets to old defectors Churchill Alemao and Luis Alex Cardoz as well as Isidore Fernandes, who won as an independent after being denied a Congress ticket during the last elections.
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