MARGAO
The BJP Margao Mandal chief Rupesh Mahatme on Tuesday said that the party will return to power on Wednesday as part of the joint venture between the original nine-member BJP group and Congress-turned-BJP MLA Digambar Kamat’s group of councillors.
“What is happening in the Margao municipality is a joint venture. The BJP had nine members in the civic body before Kamat embraced the party. The tally has now gone up to 16 after the MLA’s entry. Hence this is a joint venture,” Mahatme said pointing out that Digambar Kamat has done in the civic body in the last month what the BJP Mandal and other city BJP leaders could not do in the last 17 years.
The BJP had lost power in the civic body in 2005 when Kamat quit the party to join Congress. BJP Chairperson Kamlini Painginkar, who was presiding over the municipality was dislodged from office in a no-confidence motion, paving way for Kamat’s close aide Doris Texeira to take over the civic reigns for the remaining three months.
Since 2005 till date, the BJP could not return to power in the civic body, though the party had made a determined bid to wrest control from the Digambar-Vijai combine.
The BJP Mandal chief further said that the party-backed candidate could not win the Margao civic chief election since everything had taken place in a hurry.
When asked whether a show of hands was the right decision by the government since such a thing had never happened during his tenure in the civic body, Mahatme shot back: “Anything can happen in a democracy. There was an Ordinance promulgated by the government when Surendra Sirsat was the Speaker to hold the election for the Speaker by show of hands.”
