AAP may contest all seats in Goa elections

AAP’s central leadership may right now be busy strategising for Punjab, but the groundwork is quietly being laid for Goa as well.

Valmiki Naik, Secretary (AAP Goa), has said the party is looking to contest all 40 assembly seats in early 2017.

“When we contest, it is all or nothing,” said Naik.

Over 1,000 volunteers have been enrolled in AAP’s Goa unit. “The goal is to have 4,000 core volunteers,” he said. The AAP campaign in Goa will have local faces, focus on local issues, and have a completely local strategy, he added.

The predominant local issue is land. “Whether it is tourism, mining or any other policy, land is at the heart of everything that shapes development in Goa,” he said, describing how villagers did not allow the use of land when a telecom service provider tried erecting a 4G tower recently.

The other local issue is language. There have been agitations on the issue of Medium of Instruction (MOI), with the ruling BJP government supporting mother tongue (Konkani and Marathi) as the instruction medium in schools, even as a large section of the Goan population wants it to be English.

Besides this, AAP will also focus on issues of bread and butter, such as garbage, traffic, roads, and education. “Goa has a young, educated electorate and we are confident of doing well,” he says.

Of the 40 seats in Goa, 24 are currently held by the Bharatiya Janata Party-Maharasthrawadi Gomantak alliance.

A few weeks earlier, AAP’s national party secretary Pankaj Gupta, while attending a meeting in Goa, had said AAP would take a final call on contesting the Goa Assembly elections, in March.

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