PANAJI/MARGAO
Goa will witness two high-profile political leaders who are expected to descend over the weekend, with BJP president Amit Shah scheduled to make a short dash in and out on Saturday, while Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will spend two nights in the State.
The two leaders arrive in Goa within 40 minutes of each other, both with an eye on elections to be held in Goa later this year.
Announcing this, BJP State president Vinay Tendulkar said that while Shah’s visit has been curtailed, the sojourn will see him having two meetings, one with the party’s booth level officials as well as another one later with the MLAs and other senior leaders after which he will leave back for Delhi.
“Amit Shah will interact with more than 900 booth level party workers at Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Stadium on Saturday. Following that, he will interact with MLAs and other leaders in the state,” Tendulkar said.
Shah is expected to arrive at 12.50 pm from Delhi and proceed to Bambolim at around 4pm where his programme will continue till 6:30pm. The meeting with the MLAs is scheduled at 7.30pm after which he is expected to depart back to Delhi.
Tendulkar said that Shah’s visit is part of regular meetings he likes to have ahead of elections in States. “Similar meetings are being organised in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and other places,” Tendulkar said.
On the other hand, the State unit of the Aam Aadmi Party has announced that its party supremo Arvind Kejriwal will touch down in Goa on August 20 at 1.30 pm and will have his first interaction with mining dependents at Usgao Tisk on the same day at 4pm.
The following day he will have a ‘tribal dialogue’ at Quepem Municipal Hall.
After lunch at 4pm, the Delhi Chief Minister will hold a meeting at Margao that is to be dedicated to women. Kejriwal will officially launch Women as Leaders for Change “ a multi-faceted campaign designed to bring women together into a single voice that would not only be impossible to ignore but also help every single woman to realize their power to change Goa,
While all the political parties will be working out their strategies how to persuade growing number of women voters to vote for them, AAP is decidedly attempting to change the tone and content of Goa’s politics as it believes that gender balance and sensitivity is a crucial part of the difference”, said AAP State convenor Rajshree Nagarcekar, adding that AAP’s vision of corruption free governance and Swaraj needs active participation of all women in the State as equal partners in the political revolution.
He said the campaign that involves connecting to women through door to door activities, tea meetings, awareness programmes, talk sessions, seminars, etc, will serve as a call to action on multiple fronts including corruption and the resultant price rise in basic commodities like food, electricity and water, bad governance, poor infrastructure, access to health and education, right to be free from violence to the opportunity to participate fully in the economic and political affairs of our State.
“AAP believes that until the Women’s Reservation Bill is passed by Parliament, there is a lot that political parties can do to ensure proportional representation for women and therefore is committed to active participation of women in the party ranks and in having a significant number of women as candidates,” Nagarcekar said, while making an appeal to the aam aurat of Goa to join the revolution.
On Monday afternoon at around 1pm, Kejriwal will depart from the State after a series of private events
and interactions.
Besides the two big leaders, State BJP president Vinay Tendulkar also announced the arrival of Minister of State for Home, Hansraj Ahir, who will address a public rally in Vasco da Gama which will be the culmination of the party’s Independence Day rallies which have to date seen the participation of around 21,000 BJP
party workers.
“The programme will be held in Vasco da Gama on August 22,” Tendulkar said.
