TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Goa Vikas Party’s Francisco Mickky Pacheco and independent legislator Avertano Furtado will join Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar’s cabinet on Saturday, beefing up the ministry and giving representation to Salcete.
Parsekar formally announced the names of his two new ministers following a two-hour meeting with all BJP and alliance MLAs after they had individual meetings with Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar at the Goa assembly complex. Both ministers designate will be sworn-in on Saturday as Governor Mridula Sinha is in Bihar and is expected on Friday, only if she manages to get connecting flights.
The chief minister, however, announced that portfolios of all the ministers will be announced on Friday. “The government is yet to take a call on the allotment of portfolios. I will sit tomorrow (Friday) and decide on the portfolios. The two additional inductions will give more stability to the state government as CM and Deputy CM (Francis D’Souza) are from Pernem and Bardez (respectively), now we have two more ministers from South Goa,” Parsekar said.
Though Parsekar said that the 2012 assembly elections were contested with the help of the two new legislators, he said that at present there are no plans to merge GVP into the BJP. GVP extended its support to the Parsekar-led government right from the first day. BJP had focused on Salcete during the 2012 assembly election campaign and by supporting independent candidates in some constituencies had managed to reduce Congress to just two seats in the taluka.
Parsekar went on to add that out of the total 12 ministers, four are Catholics which means the government has given 33 per cent representation to the minorities.
Replying to a query, Parsekar conceded that some BJP legislators wanted their own partymen to be inducted in the cabinet but were prevailed upon to withdraw their demands. He also said that no conditions were imposed on Pacheco and Furtado before asking them to join the cabinet.
Both MLAs said they were happy to be included in the cabinet with Pacheco claiming he was happy with any portfolio given to him.
Likely portfolio allocation
Chief Minister Laximikant Parsekar: Home, mining, finance, education, vigilance, personnel, GAD, housing
Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza: Urban development, revenue, IT, NRI, panchayats
Ramakrishna alias Sudin Dhavalikar: PWD, Transport, River Navigation, non conventional energy
Dayanand Mandrekar: Water resources, civil supplies & price control, art & culture, archaeology
Ramesh Tawadkar: Tribal welfare, sports & youth affairs, archives
Mahadev Naik: Social welfare, industries, handicrafts, legal metrology
Dilip Parulekar: Tourism, women & child development, protocol, health,
Milind Naik: Power, information & publicity, printing & stationery
Pandurang alias Deepak Dhavalikar: Co-operation, factories & boilers, craftsman training
Avertano Furtado: Fisheries, labour employment, RDA
Alina Saldanha: Forest, environment, museum
Francisco Mickky Pacheco: CoP, animal husbandry, agriculture
