PANAJI: Congress leaders in Goa on Tuesday scrambled to clear the air, a day after state unit working president Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco visited the hotel where BJP's Goa election incharge Devendra Fadnavis has been staying.
Lourenco's midnight visit to the hotel had triggered various speculations in political circles ahead of the Goa Assembly polls, due in February next year.
Lourenco was spotted leaving the hotel on Monday midnight.
He had refused to divulge the purpose of his visit when asked by media persons waiting there.
On Tuesday, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar told reporters that he had asked Lourenco to visit the hotel to attend a scheduled meeting with a poll strategist.
"Lourenco had not gone to meet any BJP leader. A meeting was scheduled with an election strategist. As I couldn't go, I sent Lourenco there in midnight," Chodankar told a press conference.
The Congress leader said, "one cannot screen the hotels for the presence of BJP leaders".
Meanwhile, Lourenco told reporters that he was supposed to meet an election strategist in the hotel but moved out immediately when he came to know that BJP leaders were staying there.
"When I saw BJP leaders were present there, I thought of moving back immediately," he said and added that he was loyal to Congress and will remain so.