Goa State Polls 2027: Venzy Viegas, Cruz Silva may get Congress tickets, Vijai Sardesai as CM face?

MARGAO: According to the rumour doing the rounds on social media and in Salcete and other parts of Goa, AAP MLAs Venzy Viegas of Benaulim and Cruz Silva of Velim may switch sides and join the Congress. They would be given Congress tickets from their respective constituencies for the 2027 Assembly polls along with one more AAP leader who is expected to join the Congress next year.

Vijai Sardesai of the Goa Forward Party (GFP) will be projected as the CM face. It is not yet clear if Vijai would join the Congress or continue with his own GFP. However, this seems to be the equation worked out for now between the three MLAs and a former Congress state president who is in the reckoning for the South Goa Congress ticket for the Lok Sabha polls. Vijai Sardesai in the past has vehemently denied that he would wind up the GFP or merge his party into the Congress. He has always harped on the fact that the GFP is a local party and its foundation rests in its ideology of Goemkarpon.

However, former GPCC President Girish Chodankar seems to have patched up with his arch rival Vijai Sardesai and has worked out an equation or formula to win the 2027 Assembly polls, with Vijai being offered the CM’s chair or projected as the CM face, in lieu of his support to Girish in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

According to discussions on social media, Girish is confident that he will be selected as the Congress candidate this time and has roped in the support of AAP MLAs Venzy Viegas and Cruz Silva who have been promised Congress tickets for 2027. He has also convinced LoP Yuri Alemao and Congress MLAs Altone D’Costa and Carlos Alvares Ferreira to support him for the Lok Sabha polls.

It seems, according to one source a message was sent out to former Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao to join the “2027 alliance” by promising him a ‘ministerial berth’ if the alliance came to power. But Churchill being the shrewd politician that he is did not respond and later on turned down the offer. He is actively supporting the BJP candidate for the Lok Sabha polls.

Meanwhile, four-time Mayor and seven-time corporator of Panaji, Surendra Furtado was approached by the Congress high-command as a candidate for the North Goa Lok Sabha seat to ensure one Catholic (or minority community) face in the scheme of things. It is not known if Furtado accepted the offer, but his name still figures in the list along with Ramakant Khalap and Vijay Bhike.

The Congress is likely to announce their candidates for North and South Goa seats either tomorrow or day-after.

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a filing in the court said it wanted to interrogate several AAP Goa leaders including MLAs Viegas and Silva and make them confront arrested Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who is said to have paid huge amounts in cash to the Goa AAP MLA candidates for the 2022 elections.