MARGAO
In an interesting development, South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha on Wednesday came out strongly against any alliance between the Congress and the Goa Forward to fight the ensuing elections for the municipal bodies, for the simple reason that the civic polls are not fought on party lines.
Sardinha’s statement should hopefully come as welcome news for Congress workers, especially in Fatorda, where Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat and Goa Forward Chief Vijai Sardesai had mulled an alliance between the two parties to jointly fight polls for the Margao Civic body.
In fact, Sardinha made it clear that since the municipal polls are not fought on party lines, party workers should be free to contest the election and leaders can back those who have been working for the party.
“We don’t want a coalition with other political parties to fight the ensuing Municipal polls when the elections are not fought on party lines. Good candidates will receive the support of the party and its leaders. People should support those candidates, who have been working in their wards and taking up their works and we will also support such candidates,” Sardinha said.
Saying that there’s no need to have a coalition between Congress and other parties for ensuing civic polls when the elections are not fought on party lines, Sardinha said “let us talk about alliances when elections are held on party lines”.
Sardinha’s comments, many say, should come as a booster for Congress workers, especially from Fatorda, who have been demanding with party leaders in the last few days that they should be allowed to contest the ensuing polls.
His comments further assume significance and come against the backdrop of talks of alliance between the Goa Forward and the Congress to jointly fight the elections for the Margao Civic body, only raising questions in the main opposition party that the party workers from Fatorda cannot be made to sacrifice just for the sake of the coalition between the Goa Forward Chief Vijai Sardesai and Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat.
Meanwhile, the South Goa MP lashed out at the government for finalizing the reservations without any rationale, while making an appeal to the government to comply with the laid down guidelines on reservations.
“Reservations provide an opportunity to contest election to certain categories of people. By carrying out the reservations without any reasoning, the government is denying reservations for these groups because they are unsure of getting elected,” he said.
The MP said that Congress cannot be faulted if party MLAs have defected to the ruling camp, saying the party has not sent them to join the BJP. “Defections will end only if the people gherao the MLAs switching to parties after the elections”, he added.
