It seems Congress doesn’t want to repeat its past mistakes in the upcoming Goa election 2022. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday exuded confidence about winning the Goa election 2022 and said the party would act immediately after poll results are announced to make sure that the Congress government is formed in Goa. Gandhi made the comments while addressing a press conference in Margao.
Coming down hard at the ruling party, Gandhi said that the BJP had stolen the mandate of the ‘people in the 2017 Goa election’.
“This was not the original mandate of Goa. Goa had chosen the Congress party’s government five years ago. The BJP stole the mandate of Goa by corruption and giving money,” the Congress MP said.
In the 2017 Goa elections, Congress had won 17 Assembly seats and BJP 13. Despite having more numbers on their side, the grand old party was not able to form the government as the saffron party outsmarted it by forming an alliance with Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Forward Party (GFP) within 12 hours of the announcement of the election results.
It may be noted that a call from then BJP president Amit Shah to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on March 11, 2017 evening resulted in a series of activities within the saffron party, with Gadkari tasked to mobilise the support of the MLAs who had contested against the BJP and had won the polls.
In Gadkari’s words, he had received a call from Shah after the Goa election 2017 results were announced and the two discussed the possible political alliances that would help the BJP form a government in Goa.
Notably, Gadkari, who was the BJP in-charge of Goa at that point in time, took a plane to the coastal state the same night and met MGP’s Sudin Dhawlikar and Vijai Sardesai of Goa Forward Party after midnight, who pledged support to the saffron unit.
At a time when BJP leader Gadkari was conducting hectic parleys with regional outfits to win the support of the regional parties, then Congress’ general secretary in-charge of Goa, Digvijaya Singh, did not act fast enough to rope in the support of the political outfits.
Congress failed to form a government in Goa in 2017 even when it needed just four Assembly seats to stake a claim.
