PANAJI: Cracks in the BJP camp in the state capital widened on Thursday with two of Panaji MLA Atanasio Monserrate’s close aides expressing their intention to join Congress. Former Panaji mayors Uday Madkaikar and Tony Rodrigues met with senior party officials and office bearers and conveyed their interest to return to the party fold.
Madkaikar and Rodrigues said that they are keen to contest the 2022 assembly elections from Panaji and Taleigao if given the Congress ticket. State party president Girish Chodankar said that the two would be inducted in the party in a bid to strengthen Congress, but made no assurance of a party ticket.
Chodankar said that Congress was working on a strategy to dethrone BJP from Panaji and Taleigao for several months and the efforts were bearing fruit. “Both the constituencies have to be taken together. We were working on a strategy for a long time on how to recapture Taleigao and Panaji. Although we have the voters in Panaji, we were waiting for a dashing leader. Our work was going on silently,” Chodankar said.
“We have been following Babush from one party to the next, but before that I was continuously in Congress. This will be my re-entry,” Madkaikar said.
Madkaikar, who followed the Panaji MLA into BJP, appears to have had a fallout with Monserrate during the recent reorganisation of the Panaji BJP mandal. “Babush has started reconstituting the Panaji and Taleigao mandal and neither my supporters nor I have been accommodated in the mandals. Indirectly, it seems that those people who worked hard to get Babush elected, who went door-to-door to campaign, he has pushed to the side,” Madkaikar said.
Madkaikar had met AICC’s Goa desk in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao a few days earlier where he had conveyed his willingness to join Congress.
For Rodrigues, this will not be the first time that he is parting ways with Monserrate. In 2012, he broke away from Monserrate’s panel in the CCP council and supported BJP. In 2016, he aligned with Congress for the CCP polls against Monserrate, but pulled out at the last minute in favour of Monserrate.
“I have come to strengthen Congress. Many from Taleigao were coming to me and asking me to contest from Taleigao. I am interested in contesting, but I am not joining because I am getting a ticket,” Rodrigues said.
