Team Goemkarponn
CANACONA: Goa Forward Party (GFP) president Vijay Sardesai launched a sharp attack on the Congress, claiming that even a “Cockroach Party” has more political value than the grand old party in the current political scenario.
Addressing the media after the GFP sammelan in Canacona, Sardesai said electors in Goa were nobody’s “fiefdom” and accused the Congress of assuming voters would support it blindly.
“The amount of votes they (Congress) claim to have, we (GFP) too can have that many votes. Congress leaders think Goan electors are fools who can be easily misled and will vote blindly for the party. That is no longer the case. In the present circumstances, even the Cockroach Party can get more votes than the Congress. That is the reality today. The Cockroach Party has more value than Congress,” he said.
Sardesai said no political party, including the Congress, could claim to have a larger vote base than the GFP. In a sarcastic remark, he added that the GFP was “with the Cockroach Party” and was looking for “better cockroaches” to contest elections, while jokingly asking who would “break the legs of the cockroaches.”
On the absence of party leader Isidore Fernandes from the sammelan, Sardesai said he had been invited but did not attend. “Maybe he will come next time. During elections, new factors emerge. Our focus is to strengthen the party at the grassroots. We started with Canacona and will hold similar programmes in every constituency. Our main objective is to defeat the BJP,” he said.
Responding to questions on a possible alliance with the Congress, Sardesai said he had previously gone to the extent of offering to merge the GFP with the Congress to prevent a split in anti-BJP votes.
“I have been speaking about this for the last two years, but nothing came of it. The situation has changed now, but we are still open to talks. We believe an alliance would make it easier to defeat the BJP, and we will continue exploring that possibility,” he said.
However, Sardesai made it clear that the GFP would not accept any preconditions in alliance discussions.
“We will not accept conditions such as declaring a particular person as the Chief Ministerial candidate or any arm-twisting tactics. We will do what is necessary to achieve our goal of defeating the BJP,” he added.
