PONDA: Refusing to take the comments made by BJP Chief Vinay Tendulkar against Sudin Dhavalikar lying down, MGP supporters on Wednesday hit out at the saffron party.
It may be recalled that post by-poll and Lok Sabha results, both the BJP and MGP have traded barbs over the elections in particular the Shiroda by-poll where Deepak Dhavalikar lost by a small margin and the Marcaim Constituency, which is represented by Sudin and which significantly reduced BJP’s lead as the party lost to South Goa seat.
BJP President Vinay Tendulkar had recently expressed his willingness to contest from Marcaim and also challenged Sudin to resign. This statement which was reiterated by other BJP leaders has irked MGP supporters wherein MPG leaders including sarpanchas, zilla parishad members and panchas from Marcaim decided to give BJP a befitting reply.
At a public meeting, Bandora Sarpanch Ramchandra Naik reminded BJP that they had always formed the government in alliance with the MGP. He challenged Tendulkar to first get a majority for his party in the election on his own strength without importing MLAs from rival parties.
“It is a great joke that Tendulkar is asking MGP leader Sudin to resign when he conducts theft and needs to import three Congress MLAs and two MGP MLAs. Under Tendulkar’s leadership the party has failed to get a majority,” he added.
He also reacted to local BJP worker Prashant Naik’s statement about winning the Marcaim seat by repeating the 1994 victory of ‘Lotus’ and said that BJP had won that seat with the help of the MGP alliance and not on its own. He used this point to explain how BJP is in Goa today because of the MGP alliance in 1994.
MGP supporters urged the public to support MGP’s demand to ban defections. They argued that in case a MLA who has defected from its original party decides to re-contest, then the entire cost of the election should be recovered from him.
They also demanded that any such MLA should be banned from contesting elections for the next six years in order to stop Goa from stooping to such low and dirty level of politics.
Marcaim Sarpanch Deepa Naik and Durbhat Sarpanch Saroja Naik were also present.
