TEAM HERALD
CALANGUTE: The BJP’s two-day Chintan Baitak concluded Tuesday at Calangute after a four-hour long discussion and deliberations on various issues, including the forthcoming Zilla Panchayat polls and Panaji by-polls. An election committee was formed to chalk out strategies for both the polls.
The Committee includes party functionaries besides Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza and Minister for Panchayats Dayanand Mandrekar. The poll strategies would be decided by the committee for both the polls. Pramod Sawant was also appointed as the new General Secretary of the BJP.
The need to construct another bridge over Zuari River was also deliberated upon at the meeting. The MLAs were asked to outline the developmental priorities in their constituencies and enlist development that would be beneficial to the party and Goa.
“I told the chief minister that my priority in the constituency is for garbage treatment plant at the Saligao/Calangute plateau. I want the plant to be fully operational by January 2016 for better tourism in Calangute. The other priority is early completion of a sewerage treatment plant by JICA which is underway,” Calangute MLA, Michael Lobo told Herald.
Many BJP MLAs, however, decried that development works were not taking place in their constituencies and pointed fingers at the PWD – a department which has an MLA of the alliance partner MGP as minister.
The BJP rank and file was also keen on fighting the upcoming ZP polls alone. This was not accepted and a meeting was later held at Panjim to further deliberate on the issue.
