PANAJI
Once bitten twice shy, the Congress is seemingly shoring up its optics to demonstrate its battle readiness for the post-March 10 (counting day) end-game leading to government formation, five years after it choked at the post and yielded power to the Bharatiya Janata Party despite being the single largest party.
On Friday, Opposition Leader Digamber Kamat and GPCC president Girish Chodankar were closeted in a meeting in Delhi with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and P Chidambaram, who was senior observer for the Goa polls.
Coincidently on Friday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, considered the saffron party’s trouble-shooter in managing installation of governments in States, also expressed confidence of forming governments in four of the five States where polls were held, including in Goa.
According to Kamat, the deliberations with Gandhi and the other top leaders involved strategies aimed at ensuring the Congress stakes claim to government formation decisively in various possible scenarios that the results could throw up.
In 2017, although the Congress emerged as the single largest party bagging 17 seats, delay in electing a leader to stake claim and manage the numbers led to the BJP outsmarting it and approaching the Raj Bhavan with requisite numbers eventually getting a government led by the late Manohar Parrikar installed.
Kamat said in a tweet that he had a strategic meeting with Gandhi and other top Congress leaders in the presence of Chodankar.
“When Goa wins, India wins. Had a strategic meeting with our leader @RahulGandhi on Goa Assembly Polls in the presence of @PChidambaram_IN, @dineshgrao & Girish Chodankar. Congress is all set to win People’s Mandate & form people friendly government,” Kamat’s tweet read.
A day earlier on Friday, former minister, Michael Lobo, who switched camps to the Congress just two months prior to the February 14 elections, had also held parleys in Delhi with Venugopal over the post-results strategy.
Lobo was a key BJP leader who played a role in drumming up support from non-BJP MLAs-elect which eventually enabled Parrikar to stake claim in 2017.
The Congress in alliance with the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the incumbent BJP were the contenders in the main for power in the February 14 polls.
The presence of multiple parties in the fray, including the MGP-TMC alliance, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the NCP-Shiv Sena alliance has added to the contest slice of suspense with many pundits almost unanimous that March 10 may throw up a hung House.
It is in this scenario that the Congress has been rehearsing scripts wary of possible manipulations, pushing and shoving by the Shah-led adversary.
