Panaji: Manisha Usgaonkar, who was nominated as Congress candidate for the Valpoi constituency in the 2022 assembly elections, dropped a bombshell on Monday when she claimed that Congress president Girish Chodankar demanded Rs 10 lakh from her before the elections.Speaking to a local news channel, Usgaonkar said that Chodankar invited her to his home around 11pm at night where he showed her the results of a survey about her prospects in the elections.“Girish told me to come to his home at 11pm. I went with the ex-block president of Valpoi as he was close to Girish. Girish saw him and told him to leave the room. I found it odd. I sat down and Girish was there with his wife. He showed me some papers and said, if you want the ticket, you will have to increase the survey results. He told me to give Rs 10 lakh to improve the survey,” said Usgaonkar.TOI attempted to reach out to Chodankar to get his response. Calls and messages to the Congress president went unanswered.In 2022, Congress functionaries had criticised the party’s decision to field Usgaonkar from Valpoi, alleging that she had been deliberately fielded to benefit BJP at assembly elections. Congress office bearers had said that Usgaonkar was a former member of BJP who had recently joined Congress.In June, within days of being reappointed as the state party president, Chodankar suspended Manisha Usgaonkar and party social media coordinator Shamila Siddique over alleged indiscipline.Usgaonkar told the news channel that she would not have revealed what transpired in 2022 but felt compelled to speak out after AICC general secretary and Lok Sabha MP K C Venugopal vouched for Chodankar and called him a hero.Usgaonkar challenged Chodankar to deny her allegations that he did not ask for money to improve the survey regarding her popularity in Valpoi.
