from daijiworld's special correspondent

Panaji, May 5: Ahead of state legislative assembly elections, the Nationalist Congress Party's Goa wing on Monday declared that it would rethink on the proposed alliance with the Congress in the ensuing polls because it would be to the determent of party's interest.

The NCP's statement attains importance as a few of Congress' Goa legislators last week had met high command in Delhi seeking to know position on Congress-NCP alliance in the ensuing elections, sources stated.

Goa will go for assembly polls somewhere mid-this year.

"The talk of offering five seats to the NCP by Congress is a joke," retaliated NCP's Goa general secretary and spokesman Surendra Furtado, in a press note issued here. Blaming Congress for the regional plan 2011 issue, Furtado said, "The Regional Plan fiasco is a monumental fraud on Goans. After that NCP is not (not) interested to touch Congress even with the end of a barge pole".

He said the NCP was keen on an alliance only to keep the communal elements out, but now going by the Congress performance, NCP leaders have done a rethink on the issue and decided that the party had much to lose by striking an alliance with Congress.

The NCP has also expressed bitterness about Congress legislative party's recent decision to give official language status to Marathi. "Konkani spoken by 99 per cent Goans is the mother tongue of Goans and it was on this basis that Statehood was granted to Goa by Rajiv Gandhi. There is no way any other language can be foisted on par with Konkani", Furtado said.