BJP ticket or not, constituents want me to contest: Laxmikant Parsekar

MAPUSA: The battle is heating up in Mandrem constituency, at least in the BJP camp, for the impending byelection scheduled to be held before April 16.

"I will certainly be a candidate for the byelection which has forcefully been imposed on Mandrekars by the affiliation-changing person," former CM Laxmikant Parsekar told STOI.

After October 16, when the two Congress legislators, Dayanand Sopte from Mandrem and Subhash Shirodkar from Shiroda, resigned to join BJP, this is for the first time that Parsekar - one of the founder members of the BJP in Goa - has come out openly declaring that he will contest the election.

"My obvious attempt will be to secure the BJP ticket and I have taken up the issue before the party superiors and they are discussing it. How can I say that I will contest as an independent candidate before leaving the party?" Parsekar said.

Sources said the former CM had two meetings with BJP national president Amit Shah at New Delhi and at the International Centre, Goa, while Shah was in Goa recently to put forth his say before the party high command.

Sources also said that organisational secretary, BJP, Satish Dhond had a meeting with the core committee members of the BJP from Mandrem constituency two weeks ago at Arambol, where Dhond communicated to Parsekar and the core committee members not to contest the election.

"Even though the allotment of the ticket for the election is in the party's hand, the candidate's victory is in the hands of the voters. After the election was imposed on us, the people have rallied strongly behind me and their request is that I should contest the election on a BJP ticket, and if not, as an independent candidate. I respect the sentiments of my people," Parsekar said.

The first indirect official communication by the state BJP to Parsekar was on February 22 when BJP state unit president Vinay Tendulkar appointed Madhu Parab, who is known to be a close aide of Sopte, as the BJP block president in Mandrem.

"The new BJP block president was never part of the BJP. We have 500 karyakartas in Mandrem and if it was someone from among them, I would've been okay with it, but not this stranger," he said.