Alemao front to contest 35 seats

PANAJI: Churchill Alemao, who resigned from the Lok Sabha and the Congress, has formally joined the Save Goa Front and said the regional party will contest 35 of the 40 seats in the June 2 assembly elections.

Alemao said he would go to any extent to defeat the Congress and BJP in Goa. “I am fielding a candidate against my own brother Joaquim, the Congress candidate in Cuncolim,” he told reporters here this afternoon.

The leader, who represented South Goa constituency in Parliament, quit the seat on Tuesday. A few hours after joining the regional party on Wednesday night, Alemao was elected its president at a party meeting here.

“Regional parties have a better future in smaller states like Goa as leaders need not rush to Delhi to take the high command's permission on the tiniest of issues,” he said. The Save Goa Front will fight elections on issues which are dear to the common people or were affecting them, he said.

“The Congress and BJP, with their evil designs, are out to rob Goa of its beauty. We will not allow it. We work with a seven-point programme,” Alemao said, listing issues including opposition to SEZs and the setting up of an international airport at Mopa.

Vowing to keep an equal distance from Congress and BJP, Alemao claimed both parties had failed to fulfil the aspirations of people, forcing the electorate to look for an alternative.