PANJIM: Health Minister Laxmikant Parsekar walked out of the Cabinet meeting on Friday evening showing the victory sign, after the Goa BJP faced its most bitter battle for chief ministership with three contenders not willing to give an inch. To add to the drama Union Minister of State for Tourism Shripad Naik too made a late night pitch to become Manohar Parrikar’s successor in Goa, which was out rightly rejected by party President Amit Shah.
While no announcement has been made, it is all over, bar the shouting. Unless there is a dramatic and unbelievable turnaround, Laxmikant Parsekar will be Goa’s next chief minister. But, while he flashed a V sign, the BJP, especially Mr Parrikar, has been left saddened, divided and remorseful as discipline and unity fell like a pack of cards on a frenzied Friday. India’s next Defence minister faced his first ‘war’ at home.
Hectic parleying and confusion continued through the night as the party’s hunt for a replacement to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar turned complicated. The final choice of a ‘consensus’ chief minister remained elusive, as Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza walked out of a late night meeting with Manohar Parrikar, Rajendra Arlekar and Laxmikant Parsekar saying that he was not willing to back down from his demand of being elevated to chief minister.
A visibly upset D’Souza refused to back out on being sidelined from the CM’s race even as the late night meeting with incumbent CM Manohar Parrikar was inconclusive even though Parrikar assured everyone that their concerns will be addressed.
Arlekar and Parsekar emerged out of the meeting with a smile on their faces and left together in one official car. But this was just cosmetic. They refused to comment by just stating, “We had come to wish him (Parrikar) since he is leaving for Delhi.” When asked whether the trio came to a consensus, Arlekar beamed asking the photographers to click their joint photos.
However, D’Souza did not look happy and said he would meet the central party observers on Saturday morning. “I will meet them. There is no consensus on the CM’s post yet,” he said.
Parrikar, who was the last to come out of the meeting refused to disclose the minutes of the meeting, he nonetheless claimed that everyone’s concern will be addressed.
“The central party observers will take a decision. I can only tell that everyone’s concern will be addressed. D’Souza has been my classmate, my childhood friend. His concern will definitely be addressed. In fact everyone’s concern has to be addressed,” he told media.
Meanwhile, the reason for all this, the elevation of Parrikar into the Union Cabinet was finally formalized after the receipt of the invitation from Prime Minster Narendra Modi.
“I have received a formal invitation from Prime Minister today (Friday) to be inducted into the Central Cabinet on November 9 afternoon,” Parrikar said, adding that he is happy to have names of two to three people as his successors. “I am happy. Today we have two to three people who can run the State,” the chief minister said.
As the BJP made attempts to finalize its choice of chief minister central observers – MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy and BJP vice president Purushottam Rupala flew into the State. Earlier on Friday, Parrikar confirmed he would step down on Saturday to join the Union Cabinet. He made the announcement after meeting with party leaders where he sought to know from each their preference on his successor. He had met all his MLAs today to officially inform them of his move to Delhi and the final decision on the new chief minister for the State would be taken on Saturday at a BJP Legislature Party meeting.
