Panaji, Nov 18 (TOI): Congress spokesperson Agnelo Fernandes on Tuesday said the party wouldn't be joining hands with either the Goa Vikas Party (GVP) or the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) for the 2017 assembly elections as these have already allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), he said, has also joined the BJP in Maharashtra and hence, the Goa Congress wouldn't ally with it.

Fernandes further sought to clarify Luizinho Faleiro's statement of forming a grand alliance for the 2017 polls. He said the grand alliance wouldn't be a party but a partnership formed by the Congress with secular-minded people. He also hit back at BJP MLA Michael Lobo's statement that there is no intolerance in the state and that the Congress is merely trying to polarize voters. Growing protests against intolerance in the country, Fernandes said, weren't coming from the Congress but from secular-minded citizens. He pointed out that while the Congress protested rabid communalism, the present government prefers a deafening silence.