Panaji, Sep 3 (IANS): Parties like the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) should stop blackmailing the Congress to form an alliance ahead of the 2022 state Assembly polls, Congress party leader Francisco Pacheco said on Friday.

Pacheco's comment comes a day after NCP National General Secretary Praful Patel said that the Congress must decide on an alliance with his party and other like-minded political outfits within 15 days.

"There are parties who are asking the Congress for an alliance, but Congress is not asking for an alliance. This blackmailing has to stop," Pacheco told a press conference here.

"This is like a threat. No one needs to give a threat to the Congress."

Political parties in the state are in the process of working out strategies for the 2022 elctions, with Patel rooting for an alliance of like-minded parties in the state, including the NCP and the Goa Forward party.

Pacheco also said that the NCP should not be pushing the Congress hard to form an alliance claiming the lone NCP in the state assembly Churchill Alemao had been supporting the BJP-led coalition government in the state for the "last four and a half years".

Pacheco, who has previously been a part of a host of political parties including the Goa Suraj Party, United Goans Democratic Party, Nationalist Congress Party and the BJP in the past, had joined the Congress last month.