Panaji: The Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP), on Sunday, announced that it will not contest the Ponda bypoll and will instead extend support to the Congress candidate.
“We have decided not to contest the Ponda bypoll and instead support the Congress Party mainly to defeat the BJP considering people’s sentiment. We are looking at a bigger alliance for the 2027 Assembly election,”RGP president Manoj Parab told reporters.
Speaking earlier, the RGP president criticised the Congress for not taking the RGP into confidence over the bypoll.
“When we speak about defeating the BJP by forming an alliance, there is an expectation that the largest Opposition party, Congress, will initiate talks on alliance and seat sharing. But no official discussion has been held with us till date on the Ponda bypoll, for reasons best known to them,” he said. Parab said it is people’s demand to unitedly fight what he described as the BJP’s anti-Goa policies and added that in such circumstances, Congress should have taken the initiative, which it has not done.
“The BJP MLA in the Ponda constituency had won the last election by about 70 votes. Despite being a new party, the RGP secured 1,700 votes. This number would have definitely increased now with the work we have done all this time,” he said.
Parab said that, after the ZP election, no serious discussion on the alliance had been held with them.
“We have said on several occasions that we are ready for an alliance as a responsible regional party. Even for the ZP election, we compromised and contested only 13 seats, even though we had contested 38 seats in the Assembly elections.”
RGP MLA Viresh Borkar said the party will form a committee to hold discussions on alliances for the 2027 Assembly election. He said that soon after the Ponda bypoll, the committee will begin talks with other parties.
