With less than 12 hours before the electorate in Goa casts its vote to decide on who will form the next government in the state, the political slugfest continues with complaints and counter-complaints by political parties following a sting operation, emergence of fake letters, and leaking of doctored WhatsApp chats.On Sunday evening, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar claimed that his signature had been forged on a letter dated February 9, which he is alleged to have written to party national general secretary K C Venugopal. In the referred letter being circulated on social media, Chodankar urges Venugopal to take matters into his own hands as he does not wish to leave Goa to the wisdom of state-in-charges P Chidambaram and Dinesh Gundu Rao.The letter, which Chodankar has denied ever writing, said that it had been made to appear as if there was a rift within the party in Goa. The letter seemed to suggest that the decisions pertaining to pre-poll alliances taken by the party’s state-in-charges were not in sync with sentiments of people on the ground. The letter emerged hours after a sting operation by a Hindi news channel, where three Congress candidates and a TMC candidate were allegedly striking deals with the channel’s undercover reporters. Under the alleged deal, in return for money, these candidates were willing to switch sides and support the BJP if required. The Congress party has termed the sting by the television channel, as fabricated and lodged complaints with the Chief Electoral Officer.All three Congress candidates Avertano Furtado from Navelim, Savio D’Silva from Velim, and Sankalp Amonkar from Mormugao along with Churchill Alemao, the TMC candidate from Benaulim have filed separate complaints with the EC in this regard terming the videos and audio as fake.
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