PANAJI
Leaders of the constituent allies of the INDIA bloc held a closed door meeting in a Panaji hotel late on Tuesday evening to discuss strategies and also design its campaign.
The meeting was chaired by GPCC president Amit Patkar and attended by top leaders of all the allies including Opposition Leader Yuri Alemao, AAP State chief, Amit Palekar, Velim MLA Cruz Silva and NCP State chief Jose Philip D'Souza and GFP vice-president Durgadas Kamat among others.
The discussions centered around strategies to reach out to voters across the State even as the leaders expressed confidence of winning both the seats.
Earlier, allies of the INDIA bloc launched the campaign of the two Congress candidates for the North and South Goa Lok Sabha seats -- ex-Union law minister, Ramakant Khalap and Captain Viriato Fernandes -- first from the Hutatma Memorial at Patradevi and from the historic Lohia Maidan in Margao later in the evening.
In a show of unity, leaders of all the constituent political parties of the INDIA bloc travelled in a bus to Patradevi along with both the candidates and a large number of workers and supporters.
Later in the evening, Congress’ much-awaited Lok Sabha campaign for the South Goa seat kicked off from the historic Lohia Maidan, Margao with party candidate Captain Viriato Fernandes descending in the constituency for a surgical strike to ground the ruling party’s determined bid to wrest the seat after five years.
After paying respects to the freedom fighters at the Martyr’s memorial and the life-size statue of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, the INDIA Alliance leaders hit out at the double engine BJP government for various sins of omission and commission.
The contest in the two Goa seats for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is expected to be mainly between the ruling BJP and the INDIA backed Congress candidates although a third factor in the form of candidates of the nascent Revolutionary Goans Party will also play out.
