NCP in talks with Congress and Trinamool Congress for an alliance in Goa: Sharad Pawar

Pawar said NCP leader Praful Patel and the Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut were talking to Congressmen in Goa.

Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar (right) with party leader Jayant Patil during a press conference in Mumbai on January 11.

Sharad Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief has announced that his party is in talks with the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to form an alliance for the Goa assembly election which is scheduled for February 14.

Speaking to mediapersons on January 11 in Mumbai, Pawar said all three parties collectively believed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) needed to go and efforts were under way to find out whether they could come together to achieve this. Pawar was instrumental in cobbling together an alliance between the NCP, the Congress and the Shiv Sena in the aftermath of the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election, and the Maha Vikas Aghadi as it is called is currently the ruling regime. Pawar said: "We discussed coming together in Goa and the discussions are still on. No decision has been made yet. Goa needs a change and the BJP government needs to be changed."

Pawar said NCP leader Praful Patel and the Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut were talking to Congressmen in Goa. He said there is a common feeling that the BJP needs to be defeated and that talks were in progress with likeminded thinkers. Goa has a 40-seat Assembly. In the recent past, it has been a closely fought election between the two national parties, the BJP and the Congress. As every seat counts, the few that regional parties win have played a crucial role in deciding who forms the government.