Goa elections: Shiv Sena, NCP declare alliance; say Congress not interested

Goa elections: All the three parties are part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena on Wednesday announced an alliance for next month’s assembly elections in Goa and added that the Congress did not respond to their proposal of fighting the polls together.

NCP leader Praful Patel with Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut addressing a joint press conference, in Bambolim on Wednesday. The two parties announced an alliance for the Goa elections and said Congress did not respond to their proposal of fighting the polls togethers. (ANI)

All the three parties are part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra.

Addressing reporters, Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut and NCP leader Praful Patel said the two parties are also hoping for a post-poll arrangement with parties other than the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“We had thought that we should extend the MVA from Maharashtra to Goa. We thought that the Congress should play the major role and we (NCP and Shiv Sena) would contest some seats,” Patel said.

“Up to 2012, Congress used to leave seven seats for the NCP in Goa. So, Sanjay Raut made a similar offer. We even conceded that the Congress will be the main party in fighting the elections jointly. To this proposal of ours, they never said no, but they never said yes… they never gave us an adequate number of seats or spoke of seats we were strong or capable of contesting, so it was an exercise where we felt the Congress was not giving us the due respect which we deserve,” he added.

Patel continued: “I wish the Congress would have appreciated the larger picture and accommodated all the like-minded parties.”

“We (Sena and NCP) had tried to make an alliance like the MVA in Goa too. But we did not get any positive response from the Congress,” Raut said.

The two parties are looking at contesting around a dozen of the 40 assembly seats in the upcoming polls.

“In Goa, there is a lot of confusion on the ground. There’s BJP, Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and other parties and in this overall confusion, the NCP and Shiv Sena thought that though we may not be in a position to form a government, we will have a respectable number of seats and can play an important role in the formation of the government,” Raut said.

“We will decide on the seat arrangement and the list of candidates in the next few days,” he added.

The state NCP leadership is hopeful of signing a poll pact with the Congress, with party leader José D’Souza claiming that talks remained stalled after initial progress in the matter.

“Talks between the Congress and the NCP were not held at the local level but were at the central leadership level. We are not privy to the talks and the reasons why they did not work out,” Congress working president Aleixo Sequeira said.

Both the NCP and Congress had fought the 2012 and 2017 assembly elections together. The NCP’s presence in the state, however, has dwindled ever since it was reduced to zero seats between 2012 and 2017 and won only one (Benaulim) seat in 2017.

In 2017, the Congress had emerged as the single-largest party in Goa by winning 17 seats in the 40-member House, but could not come to power as the BJP, which bagged 13, allied with some independents and regional parties to form the government under Manohar Parrikar (now deceased).

The Sena, on the other hand, has never won a seat in the state despite contesting successive elections either as independent or through an alliance.

The electoral battle for Goa has become multi-cornered with the entry of Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and aggressive campaigning by the AAP. So far, poll tie-ups were forged between the regional Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and TMC, and between the Congress and the Goa Forward Party (GFP).

Taking a swipe at Congress, TMC co-in-charge of Goa Sushmita Dev said: “Congress keeps complaining about the division of Opposition votes that will benefit the BJP. If that concern was genuine, it should have worked towards consolidating the anti-BJP votes in Goa.”

Dev was referring to former Union minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram’s recent remarks that the Congress and BJP were the main contenders in Goa and that the AAP and the TMC would split the non-BJP votes if they decided to field their respective candidates.

“It’s clear that the Congress has double standards. Let me add that in the Goa elections, the TMC has the people’s support while the Congress is seen as weak due to its failure to form the government in the past. We don’t work on the basis of conjectures. We have done ground surveys,” she added.