NCP will have to give up Goa LS seat: Congress

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will have to give up a Lok Sabha seat in Goa and will be compensated with an additional constituency in Maharashtra, newly-appointed state Congress president John Fernandes said Friday.

Fernandes was addressing a press conference for the first time after he was appointed chief of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee Wednesday.

"The Congress High Command is in favour of contesting both Lok Sabha seats in Goa. We have asked that the NCP be accommodated and be given a seat in Maharashtra because they are our allies," said Fernandes, a two-time Rajya Sabha MP.

The NCP and the Congress have been alliance partners in Goa, and like in Maharashtra, the two often haggle over seat sharing ahead of both the state as well as national elections.

In the last Lok Sabha polls the Congress officially 'lent' candidate Jitendra Deshprabhu to the NCP, who then contested from the North Goa seat.

Deshprabhu, who joined the NCP for the purpose of the polls, promptly joined his parent Congress party a couple of years after losing the election.