PANJIM: A day after party’s debacle in South Goa despite the Modi wave sweeping the country, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant admitted that the mining issue may have partially affected the result.
Addressing a press conference to congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Party president Amit Shah for BJP’s resounding success at the national level, Sawant said there were various factors for South Goa Lok Sabha candidate Narendra Sawaikar’s defeat.
“There may have been some impact in the South but not in totality,” he said replying to queries.
He stated that while the party managed to negate the impact of mining ban in the North, same could not be done in South.
“In the North all mining workers were with us. We do not know what went wrong in South,” he added.
He stated that while mining areas of Sanguem, Curchorem did not give their candidate the expected lead, places like Margao, Canacona etc where BJP got lead last time did not do well.
“We will now sit and find out what went wrong,” he said.
When asked whether MGP’s Sudin Dhavalikar factor had an impact in Madkai, he replied in the negative saying, “not just Madkai our lead reduced at many places.”
When asked to comment about the party losing the Panjim seat, he said it was the party’s decision to field Sidharth Kuncalienker from Panjim.
“I cannot tell you whether fielding Utpal Parrikar would have had a different result. But the decision on (choosing the) candidate had been taken by the party’s high command,” he said.
On the stability of his government now, he said, “we have now enhanced our position to 17 and with alliance partners Goa Forward (3) and Independents (3), we are in an excellent position for next three years,” he said.
