Shiv Sena-NCP announce alliance for Goa polls 2022

PANAJI: The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) who are partners in Maharashtra government have announced a pre-poll alliance for the Goa assembly elections.

Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut and NCP’s Praful Patel said that the two parties will go without the Congress and hope for post-poll arrangements with non-BJP parties.

“We had thought that we should extend the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) from Maharashtra to Goa. Congress should play the major role and we (NCP and Shiv Sena) would contest some seats,” Patel said.

The two parties are looking at contesting around a dozen of the 40 seats.

“In Goa there is a lot of confusion on the ground. There are BJP, Congress, TMC, AAP and other parties and in this overall confusion, NCP and Shiv Sena, though we may not be in a position to form a government, will have a respectable number of seats where we will have an important role to play in formation of a like-minded government,” Raut said.

The Goa state NCP leadership was hopeful of an alliance with the Congress. Local leader José D’Souza claimed that talks stalled after initial progress was made.

The NCP and the Congress had an alliance for the 2017 and 2012 assembly polls. Since then the NCP’s presence has been reduced to zero seats in the Goa legislative assembly. It won one seat in 2017, but the MLA Churchill Alemão switched to the Trinamool Congress.

The Shiv Sena has never won a seat in Goa despite contesting successive elections either as independents or through alliance arrangements.