On Friday, the BJP announced that Union Ministers Manohar Parrikar, Nitin Gadkari and Sripad Naik will be party’s star campaigner for the Goa polls, slated next year.
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“Parrikar is a part-time Defence Minister, who is always focused towards Goa and the state level issues”. He said BBSM welcomes the comments of BJP leaders (asking party workers to speak out against BBSM), and said “after October 2, we will also start talking against them”.
However, he did not rule out an alliance with the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), which is now an alliance partner in the incumbent BJP-led coalition state government. “Entire Goa is against him, that does not mean all people are indisciplined”, he said. He further scoffed at the assurance given by the AAP as regards replicating Delhi’s “mohalla clinics” in Goa, snapping that such a promise is ridiculous when the BJP government has opened its own as well as private hospitals for the people, under the Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana, wherein the patients have to just swipe their health cards, and receive the medical insurance benefit.
The state BJP president Vinay Tendulkar, the South Goa MP Narendra Sawaikar, the Minister for Forest and Environment Rajendra Arlekar, the Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar, the Minister for Water Resources, Dayanand Mandrekar, and the Minister for Science and Technology Alina Saldanha were also present at the meet. “They have polluted the culture of Goa”, Velingkar told IANS.
“However, if these groups are able to hold on till the 2017 state assembly election”, he retorted, “then I would come out with a fitting response”. The RSS had recently relieved its Goa Vibhag Sangh Chalak Velingkar, who has now formed a parallel outfit called RSS Goa Prant.
Velingkar, the RSS Goa Prant chief, said they are hopeful that MGP, which aligns with the ideology of the manch, would accept the offer to have a pre-poll alliance. Velingkar alleged that Parrikar had betrayed Goans on the issue of medium of instruction for political gain.
While the party was on the lookout for alliance partners, the new political outfit will have no truck with the AAP in Goa, Velingkar said. “Our first proposal is with the MGP”.
However, he did not make clear how many seats the MGP was expecting in the alliance.
He said BBSM will field candidates against MGP, if it is reluctant to break ties with BJP and join hands with them.
Responding to Parsekar’s statement that Velingkar has now lost his “kavach kundal” (immunity), the BBSM convener said, “My kavach kundal does not depend on the RSS post, I am swayamsevak for the entire life”. There is no chance. “That is the time when quick orders are required”, Mr. Kawthankar said, charging Mr. Parrikar of meddling in Goan politics, instead of focussing on the country’s defence. “Any party which crushes principles, RSS swayamsevaks can not tolerate it”.
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“RSS does not support any party”.
