the goan I network
PANAJI
Utpal Parrikar on Saturday said there are no differences within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Panjim, former MLA Siddharth Kuncolienkar is on the same page as him and they will shoulder whatever responsibility or tasks the party entrusts them with.
“The question of getting the ticket is not my concern. That is the party’s decision to take. I will do whatever the party asks me to,” Utpal said, when asked whether he will contest the Panjim bypoll necessitated by the death of his father Manohar Parrikar.
The older of the two Parrikar siblings said he has been asked by the BJP to campaign for the April 23 Lok Sabha polls and he is canvassing for ‘bhau’ (Shripad Naik) in Panjim.
“BJP is not new to me. I have seen the party grow from zero to what it is now. Meetings used to happen at my
home since I was a child,” Utpal said, adding that he knows many leaders involved in building the party from close as he grew up virtually in their presence.
He said, he refers to BJP organising secretary Satish Dhond as Satish ‘Kaka’ (uncle) and also BJP’s long serving treasurer Sanjiv Desai.
“Since my father was a power centre in politics having been the Chief Minister of Goa and Defence Minister of the country, we (he and his brother Abhijat) had deliberately stayed in the background,” he said.
There has been intense speculation in political circles and the media that Utpal Parrikar will be drafted by the BJP to contest from Panjim for the May 19 bypoll ever since his father passed away on March 17. Panjim was held by the senior Parrikar since 1994 barring the brief period that he was Defence Minister of India between 2014-17.
Weeks before his death, Parrikar had tweeted a photo of himself on the wheelchair holding the party flag aloft with assistance from Utpal and flanked by his daughter-in-law when the party had launched its ‘Mera Parivar Bhajapa Parivar’ in February. It had triggered speculation that the iconic leader was anointing his older son to succeed him in politics.
Velingkar in the line of fire
PANAJI: In perhaps his first candid but brief conversation with a local television channel, Utpal Parrikar hit out at criticism from the Goa Suraksha Manch that he is being forced to enter politics by the BJP to cash-in on the sympathy factor after his father’s death.
“There is no pressure at all. Throughout my father’s 30-odd years in politics, I have been around. Now that my parents are not there, the party is like my family,” Utpal said, adding that he would want to work on concrete developmental issues.
“It had become a fashion to make statements against and critical of Parrikar as it soon used to become headlines both in Goa and Nationally,” Utpal said, referring to GSM chief Subhash Velingkar’s comments that the BJP was forcing him to contest the bypolls to encash the sympathy factor.
