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Congress, NCP to launch joint campaign

Special Correspondent

Congress to contest 34 of the 40 seats in Goa, leaving six to the NCP

PANAJI: To avert a division in the secular vote on account of dissidence, rebellion and multi-cornered contests, the ruling Congress on Friday devised a strategy to launch a joint election campaign on the basis of a joint manifesto with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Margaret Alva, general secretary, All-India Congress Committee (AICC), said here on Friday that the Congress had decided to contest 34 of the 40 seats in Goa leaving six seats to the NCP.

Ms. Alva was addressing journalists along with Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane and Goa Pradesh Congress president Ravi Naik and AICC observer Siddarth Patel to kick off the party's election campaign.

NCP accepts six seats

Asked whether the NCP had accepted the six seats, Ms. Alva said the talks over seat sharing were still on.

When it was pointed out that in the two lists of 22 candidates released so far by the Congress, not a single woman was nominated, she was apologetic.

She wanted the Goa Congress leaders to take note of this anomaly and work out corrective action.

Churchill's exit

Stung by the exit of the former south Goa MP, Churchill Alemao, from the party on the eve of the Assembly polls, to join the Save Goa outfit, the Congress scoffed at his statement on Thursday about his willingness to go with the Bharatiya Janata Party after the election, if his 7-point programme to save Goa was met.

Ms. Alva said the Congress would face Mr. Alemao's onslaught bravely and openly. She claimed that the party had stood by Mr. Alemao and saved him when he was caught on tapes in a sting operation allegedly asking for money and faced expulsion from the Lok Sabha, and described Mr. Alemao's action of quitting the Congress on the eve of the Assembly polls as the "height of ingratitude and irresponsibility."

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