MARGAO: Former PWD minister Deepak Pauskar welcomed the High Court verdict regarding the disqualification petition filed against the MLAs who had defected to the BJP and also used the opportunity to take a potshot at his former party.
Pauskar, who was elected in the 2017 Assembly elections as an MGP MLA from Sanvordem had defected to BJP in 2019 along with the then MGP Pernem MLA Manohar Ajgaonkar. However, just before the recently-concluded 2022 Assembly elections, he resigned from BJP after the party chose another candidate for the Sanvordem Constituency.
Pauskar had contested the elections as an independent candidate and has attacked the BJP since then and been the subject of criticism from the BJP leaders including Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant. There were others too amongst the defectors who resigned from the BJP and contested the elections as independents or on a rival party ticket.
“I welcome the decision of the High Court. We had followed all the due process and Constitutional laws when we had joined the BJP. However, the BJP can try to fool the public now by talking against me and the others but we were the ones who helped to keep the BJP government stable. If we had not done so, the BJP would have been sitting at home in 2019 itself,” Pauskar said.
