PANAJI
Buoyed by the formidable showing in the recently held Zilla Panchayat elections, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant predicted, the ruling BJP will win an absolute majority at the next assembly elections due in about fifteen months in March 2022 and will form the government.
Terming the ZP polls a "referendum" in favour of his party, Sawant said, Goa's voters have decisively conveyed that no other party matches the BJP.
In an interview with a news agency whose correspondent was part of the entourage of President Ram Nath Kovind who left after a two-day visit, Sawant also dismissed the efforts of the Opposition, in particular, Dr Praful Patel of the Nationalist Congress Party and Vijai Sardesai of the regional Goa Forward Party to cobble an anti-BJP alliance.
Sawant said, BJP in one corner and the rest of the Opposition parties in the other happens in every election and the BJP will not be affected.
Referring to the agitations against Central infrastructure projects related to power and rail track doubling, Sawant sought to blame "certain NGOs" and political parties for the protests.
Hitting out at NGOs, Sawant said when developmental projects are brought into Goa, some NGOs and political parties oppose them.
"The Atal bridge project was also opposed. Now they are protesting over Mollem. We are preserving the wildlife sanctuary at Mollem. Our government is taking care of both environment and development simultaneously," was Sawant's response to a query on the Opposition witnessed in Goa over the last several months to these projects which cut through protected forests.
Mining, a crucial economic activity in the State which has been shut since March 2018, Sawant hoped will get relief very soon through the Centre and Supreme Court.
He said, his government is in touch with the Centre and is seeking some reforms which will resolve the tangle.
