NCP-Sena to finalise alliance for Goa polls on Tuesday

Mumbai: Sharad Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena are set to forge an alliance in Goa after Maharashtra. Senior leaders from both parties will hold a meeting to finalise their alliance for the upcoming Goa assembly elections scheduled on February 14.

The two parties have decided to go ahead with an alliance without Congress after seat sharing talks with the latter did not materialise.

This will be for the first time that NCP and Sena will be contesting elections together in Goa. Both the parties wanted Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) type, a three-party coalition along with Congress in Goa as well but Congress leaders are reluctant to join hands with any of the parties for assembly polls.

“We wanted to contest assembly polls along with Congress but it is not happening because of local Congress leaders. Even if Congress wants to go solo, senior NCP leader Praful Patel and housing minister Jitendra Awhad will hold a meeting with Shiv Sena leaders to finalize the alliance in Goa. Patel will also be making the announcement after the meeting,” said Nawab Malik, chief spokesperson and NCP minister on Monday.

Patel is in-charge of the Goa NCP unit. Malik said that the three-party coalition comprising Congress, NCP and Sena would have helped in ousting BJP from power. He also accused Goa Congress leader and former chief minister Digambar Kamat of obstructing the alliance between the old allies.

“If Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena would have come together, it would have helped a lot. But a few Congress leaders who had taken a stand (against alliance with NCP) five years ago, especially Digambar Kamat, who had imposed several conditions then, it is because of them that BJP has been in power in Goa for the last five years. The same set of people is creating trouble (for alliance) even now,” he said.

The Congress-NCP alliance had ruled the coastal state in 2007-2012. NCP had alliance with Congress during 2012 polls and had contested on seven seats but could not win a single seat. In 2017, their talks with Congress for a pre-poll alliance failed and both the parties contested on their own.

NCP contested on 14 seats and managed to win one seat. Its lone MLA Churchill Alemao joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in December last year.

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