Panaji: Congress party in Goa on Monday said that considering its "bitter experience" in the just-concluded assembly polls, the party would henceforth think twice before giving more than one ticket to members of the same family in future.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Subhash Shirodkar conceded that the experiment to give multiple tickets to one family turned troublesome for the party, which is currently left with single digit in the state legislative assembly.
Addressing reporters in the presence of former chief minister Digambar Kamat, Shirodkar said that before the polls, a few leaders in the party had projected themselves and their family members as "winnable" candidates, which was was a "sheer case of miscalculation, which went against the party".
"Hopefully, the party will not commit the same mistake. At my level, I will put it forth (before the party) that families should not be given tickets," Shirodkar said
while responding to a question on whether they will desist from repeating the family-raj formula again.
Kamat, while addressing a press conference for the first time after the defeat, said that he owned the responsibility of the party`s defeat.
Kamat, who had earlier said that the party could have won, if he was projected as the chief minister, today refused to comment on the issue.
"We failed to project government`s achievements during the campaigning," he said, adding that the government had carried out so many schemes, which benefitted the people, which were not properly projected in the campaigning.
Shirodkar said that the party would form a special committee to find out the reasons behind the failure.
"We will introspect by getting feedback from individual candidates," he said, adding that the party will learn from its mistakes in the future.
Shirodkar told reporters today that five issues, including the family-raj (dynasty politics), the much-debated to of the medium of instruction in primary schools, Regional Plan 2021, besides environment and corruption, were responsible for party`s debacle in the polls.
While BJP-MGP had wrested 24 seats, Congress-NCP combination won only 9 seats. NCP could not win even a single seat.
PTI
