PANAJI: In a strange explanation for his statement of a possible tie up with Aam Admi Party, state Congress president Girish Chodankar said Congress has no intention to enter into an alliance with AAP for the 2022 state assembly elections and that the party made such a suggestion only to expose the Arvind Kejriwal-led party’s true intentions.
The Congress party’s strange political reversal comes after the AAP rejected the possibility a tie up with the Congress party “since it was known to be corrupt”.
On Friday, Chodankar had said that the Congress should form an alliance with AAP if the latter was serious about defeating the BJP. Chodankar backtracked on Sunday while addressing a press conference and said that his statement was a ploy to prove that the AAP is not serious about joining hands with the Congress to defeat the BJP.
“Our plan was to get AAP to give a knee-jerk reaction, which they did by saying that they don’t want an alliance,” said Chodankar. “AAP has an agenda of creating a Congress-mukt bharat in India and this was our chance to get them to prove that AAP is the BJP’s B-Team.”
While accusing the AAP of working with the BJP, Chodankar urged former and present AAP volunteers and members to join the Congress so that the BJP could be defeated in Goa. The state party president said that AAP’s only objective is to split the anti-BJP votes, which can be seen in the 2017 assembly elections, 2019 Lok Sabha elections and recently concluded Zilla Panchayat elections.
Ironically, while accusing AAP of taking orders from the Delhi-based leadership, Chodankar also said that decision about an alliance with GFP and other parties for the state elections would be decided by the Congress high command in Delhi.
Chodankar said that for now the party will focus on building up the party at the grassroots level.