MUMBAI: The Congress is banking on its traditional vote bank to return to power in Goa. The state has 27 per cent Christian population and eight per cent Muslims while 20 per cent people belong to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes, which makes it 55 per cent of the total population.
The grand old party expects these communities to vote against the BJP.
“More than 50 per cent population of Goa is secular in thinking and voting. Christians, Muslims and SCs/STs traditionally vote for the Congress and that’s why in 2017, it had emerged as the single largest party with 17 MLAs in the 40-member Assembly. This time, too, our electoral performance will be better than other parties,” said a senior Congress leader.
In the last election, the Congress had contested 37 seats and won 17 while the BJP had fielded candidates on 36 seats and 13 of them had won.
Interestingly, the Congress won more seats despite its vote share being lesser — 28.35 per cent as against the BJP’s 32.48 per cent.
Congress state unit president Girish Chodankar said Goa is a secular state and has always supported the Congress since its inception.
“The BJP could not win the elections straightway against us. Therefore they use different tactics to divide the secular votes and damage the Congress. Last time, the AAP also contested but did not win a single seat, though their vote share was more than 6 per cent. This time, there is a bigger pitch to Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress but she will also draw a blank.”
Claiming that the Congress was confident of gaining the trust of the Goans, Chondkar said, “Last time also, our performance was better than the BJP’s. We failed (to form government) due to some last-minute mismanagement. That will be avoided this time.”