Completely unhappy with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s State and national leadership for sidelining him, former Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar is determined to contest the up-coming by-election to Mandrem Assembly constituency as an independent.
Talking to The Hindu on Thursday, Mr. Parsekar asserted that “I am not a rebel and will never be a rebel against the party. I have worked in this party for over 30 years in different capacities. Minister, twice party president, Chief Minister. I am one of the founder-members of the BJP in Goa. It is getting derailed due to some people at the helm of affairs. I want to open the eyes of national leaders to the follies of these persons who are dominating the party for wrong reasons.”
“My complete loyalty to the party is being considered as my biggest weakness. I have offers from all sides. But I will not accept ticket from any other party,” he said, adding, “I will contest as an independent, not against the party but to teach a lesson to those who have gone about this decision of getting the two Congress MLAs to increase BJP’s strength in Assembly without any consultative process.”
“By contesting I will compel the party to do a soul-searching. I am against those tendencies in the party which have destroyed democratic consultative process and are hijacking the party,” he said, adding, “Merely getting two MLAs (Subhash Shirdokar in Shiroda and Dayanand Sopte in Mandrem) to resign does not mean they should get ticket. There should be assessment of their winnability.”
Reiterating his grievance that the party did not take him into confidence while getting his arch-political rival Mr. Sopte back in BJP, who had defeated him in the 2017 Assembly election while he was Chief Minister, Mr. Parsekar said it was the work of a “coterie of a few leaders who were playing these games”.
“It is the demand of my workers that I must contest by-election. If BJP deprives me of the ticket, I will have no option but to contest as independent. The Mandal teams of 46 booths are intact and are firmly standing with me,” he said. His ire is obviously directed against Goa BJP president and Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Tendulkar and his group.
When asked about his recent meeting with national president Amit Shah in New Delhi, Mr. Parskear expressed disappointment saying except for persuading him not to contest and asking him to introspection as a senior party leader in Goa, it was futile.
“Practically, it did not achieve anything,” he said.
When asked about his defeat as Chief minister in 2017 to Mr. Sopte, Mr. Parsekar said that it happened due to his disconnect with his constituency as he as Chief Minister remained too busy in Panaji. That mistake, he said, he has corrected and developed his connect with his voters back.
“On the contrary, Mr. Sopte who had won by a margin of around 7,000 votes is today seen as a frequent party-hopper who last time quit BJP to join Congress and now is back in BJP. Therefore, voters are annoyed,” he claimed.
Mr. Parsekar is also bitter that the government or the party today were scrupulously avoiding giving any credit to him for the work done, decisions taken by him as Chief Minister, whereas he was facing a case with the Lokayukta for taking forward a decision of his predecessor of trying to expedite restart of mining by doing second renewals of mining leases, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court.
He said that he has been contesting the elections in Mandrem constituency since 1989 and thus his name must be first considered. He also said that over the last two years he has been in the constituency for 24 hours a day, and in touch with the people.
“Whatever wrong perceptions were created about me ahead of 2017 polls have now vanished,” he said.
