St Andre and Goa will reject a Congress-Goa Forward deal, say veteran local Congressmen

PANJIM: Resentment is brewing among Congress workers over the party’s decision to forge a pre-poll alliance with the regional Goa Forward Party (GFP) in the forthcoming Assembly elections.

The Congress workers from St Andre constituency have now come out openly questioning reports that the St Andre constituency will be given to the GFP. They claimed that St Andre had always been a bastion of the Congress Party, winning with an overwhelming majority, except in 2012 polls when BJP candidate Vishnu Wagh wrested the seat.

On the other hand, the leaders of Congress and the GFP are working out modalities of seat-sharing.

The Congress workers recalled that even the then independent MLA Dr. Carmo Pegado, who won in 1989 supported the Congress when the party and the arch-rivals MGP were tied at 19 each with another independent backing the latter. The Congress formed the government by winning the two seats where elections were countermanded.

The St Andre Block Congress Committee has recommended four names and former St Andre panchayat member Savio Monteiro appears to be the frontrunner for the ticket.

Congress worker Anthony D’Souza from Goa Velha said, “St Andre constituency has always been Congress bastion and we have come to know that the constituency is likely to be given to the GFP if both the parties agree on seat sharing. Under no circumstances the seat should be given to GFP, who has imported Jagdish Bhobe, who had contested on the MGP ticket and was trounced in the 2017 elections. Bhobe could not even poll 2500 votes. He will again meet the same fate as we are not going to support him and he has no support base.”

D’Souza said that the Congress workers met party president Girish Chodankar twice and on two occasions Chodankar told them that the St Andre is a Congress stronghold and that he will not allow the party’s popularity to wane.

The Congress workers pointed out that after the three GFP Ministers were dropped from the Cabinet in July 2019 they continued supporting the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and quit it at the time of municipal elections last year. Because of this, the GFP has not been able to make inroads in the constituency, they added.

Similar is the situation in the Mayem constituency where GFP is trying to field Santosh Kumar Sawant, who had contested 2017 polls on a Congress ticket. Though seat sharing is yet to be finalised the Congress is likely to give three seats to GFP, the third being Fatorda.

A little over a month back both the parties overcame their strained ties and made a grandiose declaration of fighting elections together first in Delhi and later in Goa.

However, there is hardly any love lost in the grassroots with Congress workers in no mood to accept the GFP.