Family raj, Catholic swing caused Goa loss: Congress

The Goa Congress today admitted that faulty distribution of tickets favouring the family members of legislators and a swing in the Catholic vote had contributed to its defeat in the just-concluded assembly elections.

The Goa Congress on Monday admitted that faulty distribution of tickets favouring the family members of legislators and a swing in the Catholic vote had contributed to its defeat in the just-concluded assembly elections.

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"We accept the verdict. From what we have learnt, the people did not accept the tickets being given to family members. I will not consider more tickets to family members in the future," Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) Subhash Shirodkar said.

Shirodkar claimed that the party leaders had failed to fathom the public resentment which followed the allotting of 11 tickets to the kin of five party legislators. The whiplash was such that the controversial Alemao family, was allotted four seats by the Congress-NCP combine lost in all four seats.

"The Congress leaders projected themselves and their children as potential winners in the constituencies and we failed to analyse the reality on ground," Shirodkar said.

The GPCC president also acknowledged a shift of the Christian vote, a traditional Congress votebank, to the BJP. "I have also observed that. There has been a shift, but it is a little and we are going to have to see why and how," he said.

"Since I was a chief minister leading to the election, I hold myself responsible for the loss," Kamat said.

Kamat also said that a committee would be formed to assess and go into the reasons for the party's loss in Goa and the report would be submitted to the party High Command in Delhi.

The March 3 polls had yielded a shocking return for the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine. While the BJP won an unprecedented simple majority of 21 in the 40 member house, the Congress clocked its worst ever performance since the 1980s by winning only nine seats.