PANJIM: Announcing that the alliance with the
Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) will continue for the 2017 polls, the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that the coming elections will be a
referendum on the party.
“Our alliance with MGP will continue. We are in alliance for
last five years and the same will continue for the 2017 elections,” State BJP
president Vinay Tendulkar said adding that the ‘party is of the firm view at
the national level that it should always fight elections in alliance’.
Interjecting, Panjim MLA Siddharath Kuncolienkar said the
coming polls will be referendum for the party. “We have full confident in the
people of Goa and the kind of work we have done in the last four and half years
that BJP will be voted back to power in the 2017 elections,” he said.
Asked about the political front likely to be launched by
Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) and backed by the rebel RSS faction,
Tendulkar said ‘it would be just another opposition for us, against whom we
will have to fight an election’.
“In democracy, everyone has a right to float political
parties. We are currently facing opposition from several regional parties like
Goa Forward, Goa Vikas Party, UGDP and also party to be floated by Atanasio
Monserrate and now BBSM. We are ready to face as many as ten political
opponents,” he stated.
Tendulkar also announced that Union Minister for Shipping
and Goa desk in charge Nitin Gadkari, Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar
and Union Minister for AYUSH Sripad Naik would be the party’s ‘star’
campaigners for the polls.
Gadkari is arriving in Goa on September 22 and will meet the
BJP state executive, core committee and MGP on the alliance.
Gearing up for polls, the party will hold the first meeting
of the state executive, core committee and district committee on Saturday
evening, which will be chaired by Parrikar and attended by Chief Minister
Laxmikant Parsekar and all BJP MLAs.
“The meeting will chalk out election strategy and plans.
Parrikar and Parsekar will guide the karyakartas,” party General Secretary
Sadanand Tanavde said.
On Sunday morning, the BJP leaders will chair a Mahila
Morcha executive committee and in the evening
a meeting of youth workers. Mahila members will be conducting awareness
under ‘Swacch Bharat- Nital Goen’ from October 2 to 4.
