Team Herald
PANJIM: Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) on Friday said that its alliance with the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) will be decided at the end of the October but the manch has decided not to extend the deadline.
The manch had given MGP till September 30 to break ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and align with BBSM, that has vowed to defeat the ruling party in the 2017 Assembly elections.
“Nobody can give us a deadline, but the proposal which BBSM has given us will be put before the central committee of our party which will meet at the end of October,” MGP President Pandurang (Dipak) Dhavalikar told Herald.
BBSM had proposed that they will support MGP in the polls, if the latter joins hands with them. “If BBSM comes for talk after October 2 we will have a conversation with them, right now we have not taken any decision,” Dhavalikar said.
BBSM Convener and rebel RSS leader Subhash Velingkar said that the manch is going ahead with the announcement of its party on October 2, without waiting for the MGP to respond. “We can’t wait till October end for the response from MGP. If MGP agrees at later stage then we, as a party, can think of having a seat sharing agreement with them,” Velingkar said.
BBSM has decided to enter the electoral fray to oppose BJP after the party refused to withdraw grants to English medium primary schools. The manch has been demanding that the mother tongue be made the Medium of Instruction at the elementary level.
Velingkar who is heading the BBSM was relieved from the post as Goa Vibhag Sangh Chalak by RSS prompting him to float a parallel sangh unit in the State terming it as Goa Prant.
