Panaji: Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has directed the leaders of his party in Goa, where Assembly polls are due in February next year, to launch an aggressive campaign in the state and ensure the defeat of the ruling BJP.
Gandhi gave this direction during a meeting of party leaders, which he chaired in New Delhi on Friday, Congress’s Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao said in a statement.
Apart from Rao, party’s senior election observer for the Goa Assembly polls P Chidambaram, general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, GPCC president Girish Chodankar and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Digambar Kamat attended the meeting.
“Our leader Rahul Gandhi wants the Congress party in Goa to fulfill the aspirations and respect the sentiments of people of Goa,” Rao said.
Gandhi asked the party leaders to launch an aggressive campaign and ensure the defeat of the BJP in the forthcoming Assembly election, he said.
“We will take along our well-wishers, sympathisers, supporters in our Victory March towards Elections-2022. We are certain to defeat Team BJP,” Rao added.
In the 2017 Goa Assembly polls, the Congress had won the highest 17 seats in the 40-member House, restricting the BJP to 13. However, surprising the Congress, the saffron party had allied with regional parties and came to power.
Over the years, Congress’s strength in the Legislative Assembly dwindled to five after many of its MLAs switched sides and joined the ruling BJP.
Gandhi’s meeting with the party leaders took place amid indications that the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) may jump into the poll fray in the coastal state.