Goa Election 2022: Alliance talks failed with Congress, says Sanjay Raut

New Delhi, Jan 19: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said talks with the Congress for an alliance in Goa have failed.

"We held discussions with Congress but no result came out of it. Shiv Sena and NCP tried to form a Maha Vikas Aghadi-like government of Maharashtra in Goa, but Congress leaders think they can get the majority on their own," Raut told ANI.

NCP, Shiv Sena, the two Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies in Maharashtra are contemplating an alliance in Goa after the Congress declined to have seat adjustments with them for the February 14 polls to the 40-member assembly.

The Congress is part of the Shiv Sena-led MVA government in Maharashtra.

The Shiv Sena will contest 10-15 seats in the next month's Goa Assembly elections. The Maharashtra-based outfit will field "common men" as its nominees.

The Sena has so far failed to succeed in electoral politics in Goa which has a sizable Maharashtrian population. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been fielding candidates in the Marathi-dominated pockets of the tiny coastal state.

The political contest in Goa has become multi-cornered with the entry of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) apart from the traditional contestants like the BJP, Congress, MGP and GFP.

In the 2017 Assembly polls for the 40-member Goa Assembly, AAP had drawn a blank.

In the previous polls, the Congress had emerged as the single-largest party in Goa as it won 17 seats in the 40-member House. However, it failed to form the government after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which bagged 13, allied with some independents and regional parties to form the government under Manohar Parrikar who passed away in 2019. BJP's Pramod Sawant is the incumbent chief minister.

The Congress has already announced its pre-poll alliance with the GFP, while the TMC has a tie-up with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) for the upcoming polls.

Recently, the TMC had hinted at a grand alliance comprising the Congress and AAP to take on the BJP.