'Lure of jobs, AAP cost us dear in Goa local polls: Cong workers

Panaji, Dec 22 Promises of government jobs by the ruling BJP and vote-cutting by the Aam Aadmi Party led to Congress' defeat in the Zilla Panchayat elections in Goa this month, Congress workers told AICC leader Dinesh Gundu Rao on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Rao, who is visiting Goa to assess the reasons for the ZP poll losses, three-term Congress MLA Aleixo Reginaldo said that the party's top leadership should be held accountable for the losses, but also listed the promises of government jobs on the poll eve as one of the reasons for the Congress loss.

"One of the reasons why the results went in favour of the Pramod Sawant government is that jobs were promised. The government also released government doles and allowances just before the elections, after holding on to these payments for months," Reginaldo claimed.

Rao is the All India Congress Committee Secretary in charge of the Goa affairs of the party.

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had in November, just a month before the ZP polls, announced a bonanza of 10,000 government jobs, for which recruitments would begin in January 2021.

In the December 12 ZP polls, the Congress won only four of the 38 seats the party contested. The Aam Aadmi Party in Goa made minor gains in the Catholic heartland of South Goa.

Though the AAP failed to win a single seat in the 2017 Assembly polls, its candidates damaged Congress prospects in several seats by splitting the minority vote.

According to North Goa Congress District President Vijay Bhike, the AAP factor had impacted the Congress performance. "The AAP's entry into the fray also affected us. They are in Goa politics for vote-cutting and thus helping the BJP," Bhike alleged.

( With inputs from IANS )