CORTALIM: The newly inducted TMC member and aspirant for Cortalim seat Mariano Rodrigues has said that Cortalim finally needs a ground-level leader, who is accessible to the masses.
Speaking to Herald, he said, “Cortalim badly needs a son of the soil who has been brought up here, not a leader who can be accessed ‘after going through layers of staff’.”
He also alleged that the BJP is trying to fight the Cortlaim seat by proxy where independent candidates “backed by Mauvin Godinho and BJP, will be the real candidates while the one getting the symbol will just be a dummy”.
He said, “Both Anthony Vaz and Girish Pillai have been handpicked by Panchayat Minister who is from the neighbouring Dabolim Constituency. Pillai’s job will be to split votes in the heavily populated Zuari Nagar area, to help Vaz. The BJP will however have an official but dummy candidate like their South Goa District President Tulsidas Naik or Narayan Naik.”
“The BJP in Cortalim will have an unofficial, one official independent dummy and one official dummy party candidate,” said Rodrigues who recently joined TMC.
Talking of issues in Cortalim, he said, “Double tracking is an issue but it’s not the only issue. The constituency is big and while the coal pollution and double-tracking affect a section of the people, let’s not forget that these elections are not just about double-tracking. Cortalim has suffered utmost neglect even though its MLA has been in the ruling dispensation and most of the time as Cabinet minister.”
Taking a dig at the aunt-nephew intraparty family Raj, Rodrigues quipped “First the nephew was in AAP and the aunt in BJP. Now, the aunt is in AAP and the nephew in Congress.”
He said that he was completely prepared to take on the influence of Mauvin Godinho and his proxy politics by bringing about a change in Cortalim.
