the goan I network
PANAJI
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its top brass in Goa has begun earnestly working on its strengths - its karyakatha-driven organisational force - even as it continues to be haunted by a rebellion of sorts from its ‘old guard’ and spurned leaders.
On Wednesday, at a meeting of its core committee and some MLAs held at the party headquarters in Panjim, the BJP decided to launch into campaign mode by holding workers’ conventions in all the 40 assembly segments from Thursday, an office-bearer told The Goan.
Door-to-door campaign will be launched by the booth-level committees no sooner the constituency-level meetings conclude, the party leader said, adding that almost all the top leaders of the party, including Ayush Minister Shripad Naik and South Goa MP Narendra Sawaikar attended Wednesday’s meeting.
The party, however, has failed to reign in Laxmikant Parsekar, its most famous ‘dissident’ despite all out efforts to assuage the veteran leader. The former chief minister did not attend the meeting on Wednesday despite being a member of the Core Committee.
He had also stayed away from the previous Core Committee meeting held recently and has already indicated he will rebel against the party if his bete noir, Dayanand Sopte is fielded from Mandrem at the by-elections.
Sopte, who on a Congress ticket had defeated Parsekar in the 2017 general election, quit his membership of the House to switch loyalties.
Former minister Subhash Shirodkar had also done the same vacating the Shiroda seat and joining the BJP prompting an equal and opposite reaction from former minister Mahadev Naik.
Sopte and Shirodkar quitting as MLAs was a move reportedly engineered to ensure that Opposition Congress party’s numbers fall and it loses the ‘single-largest party’ tag amid its campaign to dislodge the coalition government headed by the ailing Manohar Parrikar.
