Panaji, Dec 18 (IANS): Goa will be going to the polls in a couple of months, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said Saturday.

Gandhi's statement comes less than 24 hours after Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) S.Y. Quraishi said that the poll panel had not decided on the exact timing of the assembly polls for Goa, as well as the four other states including Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, which were headed for elections next year.

"Now this is really not an occasion for a political speech, but elections to the state assembly will take place in a couple of months," Gandhi said during her public rally, held on the occasion of the 50th year of the state's liberation from Portuguese rule.

"I do hope that people of Goa will place their trust and confidence in the Congress party so that forces of social peace and harmony can be strengthened," Gandhi said, adding that Goa was a "shining beacon" of social amity.

During an interaction with the media here Friday, Quraishi said that the poll panel had not yet decided on the election dates.

"We have completed our tours and we have taken suggestions on holding of the polls. In the next few days we will sit together, negotiate, discuss on various points," Quraishi said, in the presence of election commissioners V.S. Sampath and H.S. Brahma.