While this is being seen as means of protecting the candidates from falling prey to the BJP luring tactics, the candidates brushed it off saying the shift to another hotel, owned by Quepem candidate Altone D’ Costa was only to celebrate the birthday of another candidate.Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar said that the meeting with candidates was informal and just a stock-taking exercise. “Our candidates cannot be poached now as the situation is different. The people of Goa want us to be together and it will be so. The anger among the electorate is so much that no candidate will think of switching sides,” he said. Chodankar said that Congress was in touch with all parties opposed to the BJP for government formation.Most of the BJP leaders, the Goa Congress chief claimed, were in that party for power and not for the ideology or love for it. “The BJP of today is the old Congress. This election was old Congress vs new Congress. The new Congress will win because we are in the hearts of the Goans,” he said, adding that another meeting of party candidates will be held on Wednesday night.Chodankar expressed confidence that the MGP will go with the Congress in government formation given the history of its leader Sudin Dhavlikar, who was instrumental in the BJP coming to power in 2017, being unceremoniously dropped by it later. “I don’t think they will ever forget what the BJP did to them by trying to finish the party,” Congress leader and party candidate from Calangute, Michael Lobo said.Dhavlikar told the media that he was certain that no government formation was possible without his party support. “Any party that is a partner in the MGPs growth will be welcome. I will not back a government of the BJP led by Dr. Pramod Sawant,” he said.
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