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‘If TMC from Kolkata can fight…’: Shiv Sena outs its plan for Goa elections
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said Goa and the Sena share an emotional bond and the Sena was prepared to sit in the opposition. “It is not a bad thing to be sitting in the opposition,” he added
PANAJI: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Friday announced the party’s plans to contest 20-25 seats in Goa on its own, a departure from past practice when the party contested seats as part of an alliance.
“We are here not because of elections but because we are committed to work here. It is a commitment that we will work here - elections or not. We have now decided that we will fight 22-25 seats. In Goa, we used to opt for alliances that is why we could not expand,” said Rajya Sabha member and Shiv Sena spokesperson.
“Even if we are sitting in the opposition, that will do. It is not a bad thing to be sitting in the opposition,” he added.
Sanjay Raut said that the party, which used to contest a handful of seats in Goa each election without any success was held back because of coalition compulsions and hence could not expand its base both within Maharashtra as well as now in Goa.
The Shiv Sena has contested assembly elections in the past, but the party performed poorly. In the 2017 assembly polls, Shiv Sena contested on three seats in alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the Goa Suraksha Manch. It lost all of them.
The MGP was the only party among the alliance to win any seats.
“All this while we focussed on alliances. In Maharashtra, our leader and chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had to concede that we could not expand our base (in Maharashtra) because of the alliance for 25 years,” the visiting Shiv Sena leader added.
Earlier the party claimed it had as much of a right to contest from Goa as some of the other parties with ‘national’ aspirations.
“If Trinamool Congress from Kolkata can contest in Goa, then Maharashtra is right alongside. You have seen how well we have performed in Maharashtra,” Raut said, a reference to former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro’s induction in the Trinamool Congress, who has announced the decision that the TMC will contest on all 40 seats of Goa assembly in elections early next year.
“The kind of work carried out by the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, we will work in the same way in Goa. Shiv Sena and Goa share an emotional bond,” he added.
