New Delhi: Congress stalwart Rahul Gandhi on Friday directed the Goa Congress to launch an aggressive campaign and ensure the defeat of the BJP in the upcoming Assembly elections due early 2022.

Rahul chaired a meeting in New Delhi, which was attended by senior election observer P Chidambaram, general secretary KC Venugopal, All India Congress Committee Goa in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar and Goa CLP leader Digambar Kamat. “Our leader Rahul Gandhi wants Congress in Goa to fulfil the aspirations and respect sentiments of people of Goa. We will take along our well-wishers, sympathisers, supporters in our victory march towards elections 2022. We are certain to defeat Team BJP,” Rao said.

In the 2017 Goa Assembly polls, the Congress had secured the highest 17 seats in the 40-member House, restricting the BJP to 13. However, surprising the Congress, the saffron party had allied with regional parties and came to power.

Over the years, Congress's power in the Legislative Assembly declined to five after many of its MLAs switched sides and joined the ruling BJP. Gandhi's meeting with the party leaders took place amid indications that the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) may jump into the poll fray in the coastal state.

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