PANAJI
“We are shocked that the BJP’s legal team has threatened the AAP and the supporters with law and order situations, intimidation and dire consequences. We will never withdraw our banners no matter how many times the BJP gets angry and if they remove our banners we will print more banners,” AAP spokesperson Dr Oscar Rebello said.
The party insisted that it could not be blamed if the BJP interpreted the posters to mean that Parsekar was corrupt.
“We believe we have Elvis Gomes who is an honest candidate on one side and on the other we have Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar with three query marks. We leave it for the people to decide. It could mean a question mark over whether Parsekar will be the Chief Ministerial candidate,” Dr Oscar Rebello said.
“But that the BJP has taken it to mean that he is corrupt is significant,” Rebello added.
He also pointed out that as soon as Laxmikant Parsekar took over as the Chief Minister of Goa memes were doing the rounds on social media showing former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar as the “Madaari” (monkey trainer) and Parsekar as the monkey.
“We were given to understand that it was the handiwork of the BJP elements itself that such images were going around on social media. That is defamatory. We were very angry that a chief minister of the state was being debased in such a manner by the BJP. That is real defamation,” Rebello said.
AAP’s Panaji candidate Valmiki Naik said the BJP has sent out a signal giving a licence to its workers to threaten AAP.
“I would like to send out a message to our volunteers and supporters not to be intimidated and not to fear the BJP and its workers,” Naik said.
When asked whether they thought that Parsekar was corrupt, Dr Rebello said, “It is a given that corruption was flourishing under the BJP rule in the State.”
“Though we have many reasons to believe in the corruption charges against the chief minister, we’ve left it
to the people to decide,” Rebello said.
