CM wants weekly core panel meet to remove atmosphere of distrust

NT NETWORK

PANAJI

The formal meeting of the members of the state core committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party with Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar scheduled on Thursday was reduced to an informal courtesy call after three of the members of the core committee namely Shripad Naik, Narendra Sawaikar and Vinay Tendulkar rushed to New Delhi to meet national BJP president Amit Shah over mining issue.

However, the Chief Minister expressed need for the core committee to meet him on weekly basis, so as to remove the “atmosphere of distrust” existing between some members of the committee.

Rajendra Arlekar, one of the core committee members, who was among those who met the Chief Minister at his residence, later said that no political discussion took place during the meeting.

“In fact, I was greatly relieved to see good improvement in the health of Parrikar and became quite emotional after meeting him,” he admitted, pointing out that Parrikar interacted with the visiting core committee members for about 15 minutes and had general discussion with them.

Laxmikant Parsekar, another core committee member, who did not attend the meeting, said that he deliberately skipped the meet, as he wanted to stress his resentment to the Chief Minister. “I wanted to express my bitterness and not just go there and shake my head,” he stated, pointing out that the expected decorum at the core committee meetings is not being executed properly, with some member saying something out of context and dragging the things aimlessly. “I don’t like a mockery being made of the core committee,” Parsekar concluded.

Dayanand Mandrekar, another core committee member, also did not attend the meeting.

Besides Arlekar, other members who attended the meeting included Sadanand Tanavde, Damu Naik, Dattaprasad Kholkar and Sanjiv Desai.