PONDA: On Sunday, the MGP-BJP showdown intensified further with the MGP president, Deepak Dhavalikar, announcing that Sudin Dhavalikar would be their CM candidate for the 2017 Goa Assembly elections. He was addressing party workers at the Aguiar Ground here. At least 5,000 party workers attended the meeting. Prior to the meeting, MGP leaders offered coconuts to Goddess Mahalsa at Mardol.
He also challenged the BJP to announce a fresh name as their CM choice and said only then there could be any room for talks regarding the alliance.
He said the alliance was formed for 10 years and with Manohar Parrikar at the helm of affairs. After Parrikar left for Delhi as the Defence minister, MGP waited for all these months to see if the current CM, Laxmikant Parsekar, kept his word as was decided during the alliance days. The MGP president said, however, the BJP failed to cooperate in recruitment, which would have helped the people of MGP-led constituencies. He said the MGP fortunes were badly hurt because of this.
Deepak Dhavalikar said, “BJP should first honour the alliance code or Dharma. He said BJP is halting developmental work and doing injustice to MGP. He also said BJP had reportedly put a spoke in development works in MGP constituencies which resulted in huge losses. We waited for one-and-half-years for the Parsekar-led government to perform and due to his (Parsekar) total failure, the MGP has demanded a change in leadership.
Sudin’s outburst: The PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar said Goa has literally gone back at least 10 years following the complete mismanagement by CM Parsekar. As a result, MGP wants BJP to announce a fresh name as its CM candidate. He said the BJP had not taken the MGP in confidence when it decided to halt recruitment.
Sudin also recalled how the MGP had helped BJP to win the South Goa parliamentary elections.
Sitting MP and BJP candidate Sripad Naik won in North Goa defeating Congress’ Ravi Naik, while Congress’ Aleixo Lourenco Reginaldo lost to BJP’s Narendra Sawaikar in South Goa in 2014.
In South Goa, Sawaikar polled 1,98,776 votes as against Reginaldo who got 1,66,446 votes.
Sudin said despite this, the BJP has not given MGP the rightful place it deserved in the alliance. Stopping recruitment had actually affected MGP prospects, Sudin reiterated.
“He (Parsekar) is totally incapable and along with his couple of ministers and no proper knowledge or will power, they failed to get funds for development work for the state. I managed to bring around Rs 12,000 crores from the Centre for the development fund with sustained efforts. The BJP should have had more respect for the MGP and the alliance. This Chief Minister has been forced on us. We were not ready to go it alone but BJP is forcing us to do so,” Sudin said. He said if the Parsekar continues to hold up his files and announcements, he would not take it lightly.
Ponda MLA Lavoo Mamlatdar too alleged that the development files sent by MGP to CM’s cabin never got endorsed and instead got sucked into a black hole somewhere in the CM’s cabin. The files either disappeared or continued to rot in the racks.
