Atmosphere ‘extremely favourable’ for Congress in Goa, says Chidambaram ahead of Assembly polls

Former Union minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said the Congress was getting “battle-ready” for the Goa Assembly polls which are scheduled early next year as the party will present candidates who are “loyal and faithful to the ideology, hardworking and ready to serve the interest of the people of Goa”.

While addressing a press conference here, the newly-appointed AICC election observer for Goa also claimed that the political atmosphere in the state was “extremely favourable” for the party. “The task before us is to get the party battle-ready for the elections scheduled next year. An initial assessment is that the political atmosphere is extremely favourable for the Congress party. There is an expectation that there will be a change in government and the new government led by Congress party will be formed after the elections,” Chidambaram said.

“We will get the party ready for elections and we will present to the people of Goa a set of candidates who will be loyal and faithful to the ideology, hardworking and ready to serve the interest of the people of Goa,” he said.

Speaking on the situation in Punjab and Chhattisgarh, the Congress leader said: “There is no rebellion in Chhattisgarh & Punjab. These are internal matters which are discussed within the party. Did you describe the Karnataka change of guard as a rebellion?”

The former finance minister also lashed out at the Centre’s National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) terming it as a “foolish decision”.

“The recovery in 2022-23 may take us to the pre-pandemic level, provided the government does not take any more foolish decisions. Centre’s four-year National Monetization Pipeline is a foolish decision,” he said.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday launched the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that includes the Centre’s four-year plan to monetise its brownfield infrastructure assets.