Team Herald
MARGAO: Already in choppy waters, the AAP-Congress alliance in Goa was torpedoed further after the leaders of both parties shot barbs at each other over who had a greater hold over the turf of Benaulim. The war of words also cast a long shadow on the alliance’s future, and put a question mark on Opposition politics in the State.
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After AAP Benaulim MLA Venzy Viegas lashed out at the Congress leadership on Friday, calling them “latecomers” who would be reduced to single digits in the next Assembly, South Goa Congress President Savio Da Silva and Congress leader Glen Lacerda trained their guns on Venzy on Saturday.
Da Silva claimed that that Congress would not only be fielding a candidate in the Benaulim Zilla Panchayat (ZP) elections, but also in the Assembly elections in 2027.
“We will make sure there is a Congress MLA, especially in Benaulim constituency,” he said, pointing out that Congress had won the South Goa Lok Sabha seat in the last two elections.
Da Silva’s comments came while he was talking about the party state unit building grassroot blocks in all 20 constituencies of South Goa.
Reacting to his statements, AAP Goa President Amit Palekar accused the Congress of breaking the trust of the alliance and dared the Goa Congress President Amit Patkar or Leader of Opposition (LoP) Yuri Alemao to break the alliance. “Let them make a statement on this. We don’t consider the statement by Silva as sacrosanct,” said Palekar.
“Let them come out in the open and say that they want to break the alliance and put up candidates against all alliance partners. We are not greedy for an alliance, they were the ones who asked us for an alliance. We helped them win the elections. And the trust is broken by them, not us. People’s trust. Not just ours,” Palekar said.
“I, as the AAP Goa President, dare them to say something like this. Then we will go to the electorate and the people of Goa,” Palekar added.
Earlier, Da Silva also said that the alliance with AAP for the recent ZP elections had “demotivated party workers from Benaulim” and questioned if AAP was fearful of the grassroots presence the Congress was building in all constituencies. He added that while the party is likely to contest all the South Goa ZP seats,the final confirmation would come from the Goa Pradesh Congress leadership.
Da Silva further added that GPCC President Amit Patkar had not heard anything about AAP members meeting Congress High Command in Delhi, while questioning the legitimacy of Viegas’s claim on this.
“Please remember that Congress has been around for more than hundred years and it is the jumla party (BJP) that has been trying to finish off Congress. Looks like there are some other parties that have come in recently, not to take on the BJP, but to finish off the Congress party,” said Da Silva.
At a separate media briefing later in the day, Cavelossim Sarpanch Dixon Vaz, who has recently had a public spat with Viegas, criticised his media briefing on Friday.He also questioned why the MLA was talking about the next State Assembly elections at this stage when he could be addressing the problems of his constituents in Benaulim.
