New Delhi: Congress decided not to repeat its 2017 election blunder of Goa, where the party has failed to take power despite emerging single largest party.

Voting ends in five states today, Congress is making preparation to dispatch the team to four states, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur. Instructed top leaders to take swift decision if hung Assembly arises in the results.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has held strategy meetings with party leaders to discuss the post-poll scenarios in all five states.

The Congress won 17 of 40 seats in Goa in the 2017 election but the BJP, after winning 13 seats, took power with help from smaller parties and independents. Two years later, 15 Congress MLAs switched to the BJP, led by the Congress's leader of the opposition, Babu Kavlekar, who was made Deputy Chief Minister by the BJP.

Then BJP President Amit Shah has instructed Union Minister Nitin Gadkari to rush to Panaji to hold talks with smaller parties to form the government.

Defection is not new in Goa, MLAs have switched sides often. Thus parties have taken the oath of their candidates before issuing B form to them.

Besides Goa, Congress has also activated "mission MLA" in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Manipur. The Congress hopes to win in at least two of these states, though a hung verdict is seen to be a very real possibility in all four.

Sources in the grand old party said that the party is also planning to sequester MLAs in Rajasthan; the Congress-ruled state is familiar with "resort politics" that has become a staple of recent state elections or regime changes.