PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's rise from a person who owned a modest Maruti Wagon-R to his current status as a politician with immense wealth is being scoffed at by the voters of his Sankhali constituency said Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference in Panaji, Patole also said that Sawant would meet the fate of former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar who became the first chief minister to lose his seat in the 2017 State assembly polls.
"I was in the Sankhali constituency yesterday. While going door-to-door in the constituency and addressing Congress meetings, what the people told me is important. It shows how the BJP is poised for defeat in Goa," he said.
"The BJP candidate there is the incumbent Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. People there say that he once had a Wagon-R car. He was an (alternative medicine) doctor and he was a poor person. Where did he get so much money from? Whereas our mines have stopped, our vehicles are lying idle on the roads, we have had to sell our gold to pay off loans. We are without food," Patole said, adding that the voters of the Sankhali constituency had begun to get a "true picture of the BJP now".
Patole also said that there is palpable anger against the BJP in Sankhali as well as the rest of Goa because of the deaths during the pandemic due to lack of oxygen and the failure of the State government on various fronts.
"People there have resolved to defeat the sitting Chief Minister. Nearly 850 persons died during the Covid pandemic due to a lack of oxygen. They (the government) should have been booked for manslaughter for the deaths due to lack of oxygen. Questions are being asked about how people can be killed due to lack of oxygen in a democracy," he said.
Patole also said that rampant unemployment, the drop in tourism footfalls and the failure of the State government to restart mining would take a political toll on the ruling party.
Patole also said that voters in Goa had sensed that the Congress was the only option against the BJP and that voting for smaller parties would only lead to a split in votes which would bring the BJP back in power.
"Goans have resolved that the Congress is the only solution. Regional parties which are in the fray are an attempt to split the Congress vote, people realise that. If one votes for them, the BJP will come back to power," Patole said.
The Maharashtra Congress president also said that by buying spying platforms like Pegasus, the Centre was bent on derailing democracy in the country.
"The Central government is trying to collapse democracy by acquiring a technology platform like Pegasus for reportedly a Rs 15,000 crore deal. Journalists, judicial officers, politicians, businessmen, industrialists phones were tapped. Such rampant spying by the Central government is dangerous for democracy," the Congress leader said.
"Now, when a foreign daily publishes a report on Pegasus, the Central government accuses the newspaper of being 'suparibaaz'," he added.
