PANAJI
After seemingly being nudged out of the Pernem assembly seat by the BJP, deputy Chief Minister Manohar alias Babu Ajgaonkar on Friday took a plunge into the Sonsoddo kabrastan issue to give a new lease of life to his electoral future in Margao.
Calling himself a loyal "soldier" of the BJP, Ajgaonkar expressed his willingness to contest the Margao assembly seat, if the party desires and accused former Chief Minister and sitting Margao MLA Digambar Kamat of repeatedly using the Muslim vote for his elecotral benefit.
Ajgaonkar on Friday met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant at the latter's official bungalow in Panaji, accusing Kamat and former Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai of conspiring against Muslims to create hardships in getting the dead from the minority community buried with respect in a cemetery.
"The Margao kabrastan issue has been hanging fire for the last 40 years. Digambar has contested several elections on this issue. He won elections because he managed to unfailingly lure Muslim votes. But did not facilitate the kabrastan. The kabrastan has remained the same size from the Portuguese era. The population has increased now. There are 8,000 Muslims now, where there were just 500," Ajgaonkar told reporters after meeting Sawant.
"30,000 sq mts land was acquired for the kabrastan at Sonsoddo. Possession had been given to the Jama Masjid. The zone has since been changed and the process has started to acquire another piece of land now. This Sonsoddo land should be given to the kabrastan. This is what we have requested of the CM. He has accepted it and CM has said that the zone will be changed and it will be given back to the Jama masjid and the kabrastan should be started," Ajgaonkar said.
"Digambar Kamat should have taken up the issue, because he has won often there using the kabrastan as an issue. The BJP will do justice to Muslims and trying to restore the original land for the kabrastan," he also said.
Armed with the kabrastan issue, Ajgaonkar, a two-time Margao councillor, also said that he had pockets of influence in and around Margao and would contest from Margao, if the BJP directed him to.
"Today, if the party feels Babu should contest from Margao, I am ready. I am a soldier of the party. I will listen to what the BJP says and I have nothing to do with any other party," he said, adding that he has a hold in Navelim, Fatorda, Seraulim-Benaulim, Curtorim. "100 percent BJP will defeat Digambar," he also said.
