Will choose CLP leader within minutes of Goa result: Gundu Rao

Panaji : The Congress in Goa will choose a legislative party leader within minutes of the election results on March 10, and stake claim to form government, party Secretary in-charge of Goa Dinesh Gundu Rao said on Monday.

Addressing reporters, after a meeting of Congress candidates to discuss strategy and flow of events on counting day, he said that the Congress would form the government in Goa.

“As soon as the entire results are out, we will have a CLP meeting, within a few minutes we will elect a CLP leader and we will go and stake the claim,” he said.

Delay to stake claim in 2017, had cost the Congress a chance to form a government in Goa, despite emerging as the single-largest party after elections, and Rao said that the party would not make such mistakes again.

“What happened in 2017 will not happen this year. We are together, we are prepared. We won’t allow the repetition of what happened in 2017. This time the Congress will form the government and there will be no scope for anything else to happen,” he said.

“Those issues will not come into the picture. We will take decisions at the right time. There will be no delay and as soon as the results are out, we will stake claim and as per the Constitution, the Governor has to follow the rules and I don’t see any reason for anything to go wrong this time,” he added.

The Congress in alliance with the Goa Forward party (three seats) has contested 37 seats out of the 40 Assembly seats.