PANAJI
A day after the Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) walked out of alliance talks, the Congress and the Goa Forward Party (GFP) formally announced their tie‘up for the December 20 Zilla Panchayat elections at a joint press conference held in Panaji on Tuesday, minutes after the deadline for filing nominations closed.
Under the seat‘sharing arrangement, the Congress will contest 36 constituencies, while GFP will field candidates in nine.
Congress candidates will be spread across 19 seats in North Goa and 17 in South Goa while the GFP will contest four seats in North Goa and five in South Goa.
Together, the two parties have put up candidates in 45 of the 50 constituencies, with plans to extend support to strong Independent candidates in the remaining five as part of their electoral strategy.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Amit Patkar said the alliance reflected the public sentiment for opposition unity.
“People wanted us to come together, and the excitement has been building over the last few days,” he said.
Patkar added that the alliance was a continuation of the 2022 arrangement, aimed at consolidating anti‘BJP forces. He acknowledged that the parties would face each other in two constituencies but described them as “friendly fights” undertaken in the larger public interest.
GFP president Vijai Sardesai echoed the sentiment, stressing that the alliance was forged to respect the will of Goans. “We have moved forward with the 2022 alliance respecting the sentiment of the people of Goa to unite and overthrow the BJP,” Sardesai said.
He admitted that the alliance could have been broader but cited coordination challenges and time constraints in finalising candidates.
“We decided to fight both seats together as a friendly fight so as to not start a fire,” he explained, referring to the constituencies of Corlim and Morjim. Sardesai emphasised that the decision was taken to avoid confusion among party cadres and to maintain unity.
Patkar, meanwhile, underlined the importance of humility and cooperation in building alliances.
“If you sit with ego, you will be betrayed. If all three parties were right, our strike rate would have been good,” he remarked, in a veiled reference to RGP’s exit from the talks.
