Less than a month is left for the Goa Assembly Election 2022 to go to the polls. In such a situation, all the parties have given their full strength in the election campaign amid the Covid-19 rules imposed by the Election Commission (EC), but it is believed that the Congress party will have to fight this time a little. It may be difficult. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) are also standing as a challenge in these elections, in front of the Congress party, which has become the biggest victim of defection of MLAs.
However, senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of the state Digamber Kamat, denying any such challenge, claims the party to have a strong vote base in all the 40 assembly constituencies and maintains that the Congress vote is the party’s. Yes, not the leader.
In a special conversation with Moneycontrol, on the party’s damage control after the defection of MLAs, Digambar Kamat said, “In every assembly constituency of Goa, Congress has a vote base, which does not depend on the leader, if the leader leaves or If the MLA leaves, the Congress base doesn’t go with him like we saw in the Lok Sabha elections too.”
‘Congress voters don’t see candidates’
The biggest setback to the Congress was when 10 out of its 17 MLAs left the party and joined the BJP, so it is inevitable to have a direct dent on the party’s vote bank, but citing the example of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Kamat refused to accept this.
He said, “Wherever the Lok Sabha elections were held in 2019, we did not have MLAs in the assembly constituencies, but the Congress still got seven to eight thousand votes there, that means this is the base of the Congress, Congress voters do not see this. It doesn’t matter who the candidate is. The MLA is gone, the vote base remains the same.”
‘I apologize for the mistake made in 2017’
Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat acknowledged the mistakes made by the leadership during that time when the Congress did not form the government even after getting 17 seats in the year 2017. He said that BJP took advantage of this mistake of ours and formed the government.
Kamat said, “BJP’s strength had gone up from 21 to 13 MLAs, but even after such a difference, they managed to form the government. Our senior leader P Chidambaram told the people that this kind of mistake will not be repeated again. , we guarantee.”
Apologizing to the public, the Congress MLA from Margao said, “I apologize to the people that, what happened in 2017 was not right, BJP formed the government even after giving public opinion to us.”
Digambar Kamat’s promise to the public
This time Congress is not only apologizing for the mistake of 2017 but also appealing to the people to vote with another new promise. In the conversation, Digambar Kamat said that this time we have made the same promise to the people that not a single defector i.e. the leaders who leave the party will be taken back.
He said, “We have made a firm promise to the people, we will not take back the defectors who left the Congress and we are firm on that promise. The MLAs who left us, they still say, ‘Humko’. Take it back, but not a single MLA has been taken back by the Congress.”
Without naming Alexo Reginaldo Lourenco, who went from Congress to TMC, Kamat said that a few days ago one of our MLAs had moved to another party after the ticket was announced and now he wanted to come back, he also resigned from there. , but the party leadership told him not to take it back.
Goa Election 2022: To fulfill Manohar Parrikar’s dream of ‘Golden Goa’, doesn’t BJP want son Utpal Parrikar’s support?
Let us tell you that Alexo Reginaldo is a three-time MLA and he has also been the working president of Congress. Congress had given him ticket from Curtorim this time too, but he switched to TMC after the announcement. Surprisingly, TMC also announced his name from Curtorim, after which Reginaldo resigned from there as well.
Kamat further said, “This has sent a message to the people that the Congress party is a firm, which has kept its promise of not taking the defaulters.” Kamat claimed, “Out of the 10 people who had left the party together, it is difficult for even one to win and now express their desire to come back.”
Who is Digambar Kamat?
Digambar Kamat was the Chief Minister of Goa from June 2007 to March 2012. Kamat started his political career as a member of the Indian National Congress. In 1994, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government. In 2005, he once again joined the Congress in support of the referendum of voters of the Margao constituency.
Kamat is recognized as a sharp-tongued politician in the state. Kamat played a key role in the fall of the Manohar Parrikar-led BJP government in 2005.
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