PANAJI: Goa BJP election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis held one-on-one meetings with BJP MLAs and ministers on Tuesday to gauge the political situation and chalk out a final strategy for the state assembly elections early next year. He said all sitting MLAs would remain in BJP.
The former Maharashtra chief minister was in Goa on a two-day visit.
Canacona MLA Isidore Fernandes told Fadnavis that each of the 10 former Congress MLAs who switched to BJP should be given tickets. He said party functionaries who had lost the elections and who had betrayed BJP were claiming for tickets. “What right do they have to stake such a claim? We have come to BJP without condition,” he said.
Panaji MLA Atanasio Monserrate guaranteed Fadnavis that he would win all five seats in the Tiswadi taluka for the party. He said that during former CM Manohar Parrikar’s time, BJP used to win only a single seat in the taluka, while the remaining four used to be claimed by Congress. Monserrate, however, said that he did not mean that Parrikar was unable to win all five seats for the party. “But, if Parrikar was alive, I wouldn’t have been able to win the Panaji seat. Parrikar always came first,” he said.
Mayem MLA Pravin Zantye told Fadnavis that mining should restart before elections so that people can get jobs. “The mining belt will stand with BJP,” he assured. PWD minister and former MGP MLA Deepak Pauskar said that when he and tourism minister Manohar Ajgaonkar had joined BJP, Union home minister Amit Shah had promised them tickets to contest the 2022 assembly elections.
Fadnavis also met power minister Nilesh Cabral, Aldona MLA Glenn Ticlo and Mandrem MLA Dayanand Sopte.
