Panaji: Candidates contesting the Goa Assembly elections on Congress ticket in Goa 2022 will take an oath of allegiance to the party in the presence of senior leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday. A party official gave this information.
He said that Gandhi would also address a public meeting in Sankhalim assembly constituency on a day-long tour of the state, which is currently being represented in the assembly by the Chief Minister of the state and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Sawant. Voting for 40 assembly seats in Goa will be held on February 14 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10. Congress has tied up with Goa Forward Party (GFP) for the elections. Congress has fielded candidates in 37 seats and GFP in three seats.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) spokesperson said, “After reaching Goa on Friday, Rahul Gandhi will first hold a meeting with party leaders at the ‘International Center’ in Dona Paula. There will be a program called ‘Pledge of Loyalty’ at 1 pm, in which party candidates and other leaders will take an oath of allegiance to the party in the presence of Rahul Gandhi.
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The party functionary said that at 3 pm Gandhi will interact with various stakeholders in the state and at 5 pm he will address a public meeting in Sankhalim. In the past five years, the Congress has been the most affected by defection in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Goa, as most of its MLAs left the party.
In 2019, 10 Congress MLAs had joined the BJP, which now has 27 MLAs in the assembly. The Congress had won 17 out of 40 seats in the 2017 assembly elections and now has only two MLAs in the assembly. The Congress recently took its candidates to a temple, a church, a gurudwara and a dargah in the state, where they were asked to take an oath that they will not leave the party if they win the elections.