CORTALIM
In fact, the party high command which did not have a rapport with their lone lady MLA, had in the past even rumoured that she could be ruled out for the party ticket in the 2017 assembly election.
Not only was Saldanha humiliated by the party leaders, her firm stand on various controversial projects especially the Tiracol golf course was one of the main reasons of her being stripped off the forest and environment portfolio.
Somewhere in March 2015, a teary-eyed Saldanha told chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar that she “had been humiliated and insulted in the party” which has not taken her into confidence before allotting the Sancoale ZP seat to MGP.
Saldanha had also cornered the BJP by making statements in the media that her late husband, Matanhy Saldanha, never supported Mopa airport and also demanded special status for Goa.
In one of the controversial issues that had broken out in the BJP legislative party, Parsekar said that Alina did not know politics. A then BJP top party functionary had even told Saldanha that “she did not contest the election and that the BJP had got her elected unopposed.”
To this, the teacher-turned politician had hit back saying, “Why had they got her elected unopposed?” and reminded the party leaders that she would have won the seat.
Saldanha was also not on the BJP’s list of winnable candidates but as fate would have it, the party faced a major embarrassment as the chief minister Parsekar
had to bite the dust at the hustings.
