‘No talks with Congress,’ affirmed the Nationalist Congress Party on Tuesday as it moved forward with the Shiv Sena for the Goa elections for the 40-member assembly house. NCP’s Praful Patel and Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut are in Goa to hold a meeting to finalize their alliance for the elections. This will be for the first time that NCP and Sena will be contesting elections together in Goa.
The idea was to repeat the Maharashtra coalition experiment, but Congress gave its alliance partners a ‘cold-shoulder’. “Congress says they can win on their own,” said Patel, a statement quite similar to that of Raut. The NCP leader had, however, added, “The Congress cannot go beyond single-digit if it contests the assembly polls in the coastal state on its own, without the help of the Nationalist Congress Party and the Shiv Sena.”
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday announced the schedule for Goa Legislative Assembly elections 2022. The polls to elect members to the 40-member House will be conducted in a single phase on 14 February, while the counting of votes will take place on 10 March.
