PANJIM: Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) Vice President Sunil Kawthankar said, “BJP has lost South Goa seat purely due to anger of the general public against Modi-led government and misgovernance, massive corruption, arrogance, anti-democratic and anti-Constitution acts, such as engineering and encouraging defections to subvert public mandate.”
“BJP has been trying to run away from owning the responsibility of humiliating defeat. BJP leaders by blaming Catholic priests are contradicting their own Chief Minister Pramod Sawant who is on record claiming the circular by Archbishop was in favour of BJP. This is a mirror the BJP leaders should look into. It’s time for BJP to do Chintan Baithak analysing defeat in South and they will realise that their own voter base is shifting to Congress after being fed up of their corrupt and communal party,” he said.
Kawthankar said statistics will further clear the communal smoke screen created by BJP, considering 80 per cent of total approximate, 1.30 lakh Catholic voters voting for Congress.
“ 1.08 lakh people voted for us which means almost one lakh Hindu voters voted for the Congress. It looks like the BJP has still not learnt a lesson that politics of hatred and divisiveness doesn’t work out in Goa, as we all believe in live and let live and respect and protect each other’s way of life and belief. Goa decides on merits and this stupidity of spreading and dividing people on communal lines will completely finish BJP. The final mirror BJP must look into and introspect is Ayodhya seat in UP. Were there Catholics who defeated them there and at several other seats in UP?,” he wondered.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) State convenor Amit Palekar said, “I have been very categorical in saying that it is the BJP which were trying to divide the electorate on religious lines. Today blaming priests is very unfortunate. Nearly 2.5 lakh votes have been polled by the Captain. I do not think that he won because of the propaganda. BJP should not indulge in such politics. Goa is the most tolerant state and dividing Goa by a chief spokesperson of the BJP who has no other work in life is very unfortunate. They should stop dividing people on the religious lines.”
