In fresh blow to INDIA, AAP ups ante in Goa, names LS candidate from Congress stronghold

Addressing a press conference, the AAP’s Goa unit president Amit Palekar announced that the party’s Benaulim MLA Capt. Venzy Viegas will be the candidate for the South Goa seat “on behalf of the INDIA alliance”, blaming Congress for the “delay” in finalising seat-sharing.

Palekar said both the AAP and the Congress held various meetings on seat-sharing at the national level, but no formal meetings had taken place over the last one month. He sought to link the “delay” on the part of the Congress to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

“The first meeting was held on January 8, followed by another meeting on January 12, but since then there has been no formal meeting. Time is of the essence…With less than two months to go for polls… delay can be harmful for campaigning and winning,” said Palekar.

“We can’t fight elections for the sake of just fighting. We want to fight to win and to defeat the BJP. So to that end and keeping in mind the ground realities, we have announced our candidate. We expect that he (Venzy) will be confirmed as the alliance candidate, as broader talks continue,” he said.

The state AAP chief also said they had been in touch with the state Congress leadership to discuss potential candidates, but “were given to understand that enough time was not being given to the local (Congress) leaders by their central leadership for decision making”.

“We were told they (Congress leaders) are busy with the Yatra… In an alliance, we have to work in tandem and that confidence building was not happening as far as announcing candidates is concerned,” Palekar said, adding “The fact they (Congress) have a sitting MP from South Goa, they should have been more serious…Let us see if things change now.”

AAP leader Valmiki Naik claimed, “We (Congress and AAP) are alliance partners. This is not a pressure tactic of any sort. We are following the alliance dharma and going by the ground reality we believe Venzy has the best chance of winning from South Goa. Regarding the candidate for North Goa seat, the discussions with the Congress will continue. The alliance is going strong.”

In his reaction, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Amit Patkar said, “I don’t know why the AAP Goa president took a premature press conference to announce Lok Sabha candidate, that too for South Goa which has a sitting Congress MP. INDIA leaders are in talks and a decision on contesting seats in various states will be taken by INDIA leaders in Delhi.”

South Goa, one of the two Lok Sabha seats in Goa, is currently represented by the Congress’s Francisco Sardinha.

This has been a traditional stronghold of the Congress, although the party put up a poor performance in the belt in the 2022 Assembly polls.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, AAP candidate Elvis Gomes had finished third in the South Goa seat behind Sardinha and the runner-up from the BJP Narendra Sawaikar. The North Goa seat was won by BJP leader Shripad Naik.

In its first electoral foray into Goa, the AAP had drawn a blank in the 2017 Assembly elections. In 2020, the AAP won a zila panchayat seat in Benaulim. In the 2022 Assembly polls, the party won only two seats – Velim and Benaulim, both in South Goa – out of 40 as against the BJP’s 20 and the Congress’s 11.

Meanwhile, at the inauguration of the BJP’s election office in South Goa, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant took a swipe at the INDIA alliance, saying it has collapsed in the state.

Earlier in the day, following the AAP’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) meeting in Delhi, the party’s general secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak also announced its candidates from the Bharuch and Bhavnagar seats in Gujarat, offering just 1 seat out of 7 to the Congress in the national capital.

This came three days after AAP supremo and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal told a rally at Khanna that his party will contest all 13 seats in Punjab besides the Chandigarh seat on its own steam.

Last week, the AAP unilaterally announced its candidates from three Lok Sabha seats in Assam.