AAP and Goa Forward Party Form Alliance to Take on BJP in Goa Assembly Elections

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP ) are set to form an alliance for the Assembly elections in the state, slated to be held early next year. The leaders of the two parties will formally announce the alliance at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, The Indian Express has learnt. The Congress, which has three MLAs, is not yet part of the alliance that will be called the “Goa First Alliance”, sources said. In a post on X on Saturday, AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal said, “Am going to Goa today to make a very big announcement.” Earlier in the day, some hoardings and posters with the symbols of the two parties came up on a road, sparking the buzz of a tie-up. The hoardings targeted the BJP and the Congress , with a message for voters in the coastal state: “Congress and BJP cheated you twice. Don’t let them cheat you the third time.” The GFP is a regional outfit led by MLA Vijai Sardesai . It contested the 2022 Assembly polls in alliance with the Congress, winning only one seat: Fatorda that Sardesai represents. The AAP contested on its own five years ago and won two seats in South Goa, Velim and Benaulim. Senior AAP and GFP functionaries said an alliance is crucial to defeat the BJP and blamed the Congress for “stalling” talks for a joint Opposition alliance. The leaders, however, said “the door remains open” for “like-minded secular forces” to join the alliance in future and unitedly defeat the BJP. “There is a strong sentiment against the BJP. The fact is that Goa needs an alliance to defeat the BJP. Both the parties that are coming together are interested in an alliance with the Congress. But the Congress is perhaps not going to have that alliance until, say, three weeks before the election. So, this alliance, at this juncture, reflects a failure of the Congress,” said a senior AAP leader. “Congress, being the most prominent party in the Opposition, should have taken the lead in forming an alliance, which they have not done. We cannot keep waiting. You do not get an alliance by giving statements in the media. Elections are not fought in the last three months. People need to prepare in advance,” the AAP leader said. The BJP emerged as the single-largest party in the 2022 polls, winning 20 of the state’s 40 seats while the Congress returned with 11. In a setback for the Congress, eight MLAs defected to the BJP in September 2022, bringing its tally down to three. Earlier, in 2019, 10 Congress MLAs had defected to the BJP. The issue of “defections” weighed heavily as the two parties discussed whether they should bring in the Congress. The GFP held talks with Congress leaders earlier last month, but nothing came of it. “The public sentiment is that there should be unity before the polls to defeat the BJP. The Congress has ‘supplied’ (defections) 18 MLAs to the BJP in the last seven years. This fact cannot be denied. These defections gave political stability to the BJP. People had not given them a complete mandate. The mandate was stolen by breaking the Congress,” said a senior GFP leader. “So, we are first off the block, and are going ahead with an alliance (with AAP), which is what the people of Goa want. We are telling people that don’t give them (BJP and Congress) a chance to do a hat-trick. If you want to give an alternative to the people, it cannot be those who will defect. The Congress is on the wrong side of history here,” the leader said. The Congress, meanwhile, claimed that the BJP had put up the hoardings to “confuse” people. State Congress president Girish Chodankar said the party was in talks with the GFP and discussions about an alliance were going on with the party’s high command.