Congress and NCP leaders are speaking to each other over the possibility of forging an alliance for the 2022 Goa assembly polls, state Nationalist Congress Party president Jose Phillip D'Souza said on Tuesday.
D'Souza also said that the Congress should not take the NCP lightly in the run-up to the polls, adding that a split in secular votes, would only ensure that the ruling BJP stays in power.
D'Souza's comments come at a time when the Congress has failed to commit to an alliance for the Goa polls with the NCP, even after the Sharad Pawar-led party's national general secretary Praful Patel's 15-day deadline to the Congress to come clear on the alliance lapsed on Tuesday.
"When our leader Praful Patel came to Goa the last time, he gave 15 days for the alliance to happen. Yes, our leaders are working on it. They are talking to the central leaders of the Congress," D'Souza said, adding that the NCP's state unit would go ahead with whatever decision is taken by his party's central leaders.
He also warned the Congress party to not take the NCP for granted urging Congress leaders to say yes to the alliance in order to keep the secular votes intact.
"Do they feel that we cannot do anything and that we cannot move ahead without an alliance? That is wrong," D'Souza said.
"Division of the secular votes, the non BJP votes, will benefit them (BJP). If we do not come together, the non BJP votes may swing to the BJP, sensing no unity among us," D'Souza further said.
The NCP currently has only one MLA in the 40-member Goa legislative assembly.
Published 14 September 2021, 13:20 IST