Goa polls: Cong candidates to take pledge of party loyalty in Rahul Gandhi’s presence on Friday

Congress’s Assembly poll candidates in Goa will take a pledge of loyalty to the party in the presence of its senior leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday, when he will be on a day-long visit to the state, a party functionary said.

During the visit, Gandhi will also address a public meeting in Sankhalim Assembly constituency, which is currently represented by state Chief Minister and BJP leader Pramod Sawant, he said.

Elections to all 40 Assembly seats in Goa will be held on February 14 and the results will be declared on March 10. The Congress has tied up with the Goa Forward Party (GFP) for the polls. While the grand old party has fielded 37 candidates, the GFP is contesting on three seats. ”On his arrival in Goa on Friday, Rahul Gandhi would first hold a meeting with the party leaders at the International Centre in Dona Paula near here,” the spokesperson of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) said.

”The party has designed a programme called Pledge of Loyalty at 1 pm, wherein poll candidates and other leaders would take an oath of loyalty to the party in the presence of Gandhi,” he added.

At 3 pm, Gandhi is scheduled to hold an interaction with various stakeholders in the state and at 5 pm, he will address a public meeting at Sankhalim, the party functionary said.

In the last five years, the Congress was hit the hardest by defections in the BJP-ruled Goa as most of its legislators quit the party. In 2019, as many as 10 Congress legislators had joined the ruling BJP, whose current strength in the Assembly stands at 27.

The grand old party, which had emerged as the single largest force by winning 17 seats in the 40-member House after the 2017 Assembly elections, now has only two MLAs in the House. Recently, the Congress had taken its Goa poll candidates to a temple, a church, a gurdwara and a dargah in the state, where they were made to take a pledge that they would not defect if they get elected.