Peoples' will prevails in democracy: Kamat to BJP
THE GOAN NETWORK
MARGAO
Former chief minister and five-time Margao MLA Digambar Kamat on Friday sent a message - loud and clear to the BJP bosses, that only peoples' power and the will of the people prevails in a democratic set up and nothing else.
Asked to react to Defense Minister, Manohar Parrikar’s statement that the BJP will win 26 seats in the 2017 Assembly poll, including the Margao seat held by Kamat since 1994, the former chief minister said that people of Margao had been supporting him since the last 20 years because of his work and his policies. “In a democratic set up, People’s power reign supreme. It is the will of the people that prevail in a democracy. People vote for you based on your policies and work and not on extraneous considerations,” he said, apparently sending the message loud and clear that mere statements cannot win elections.
The BJP had been unsuccessfully trying to defeat Kamat since 2005 when Kamat had quit the party to embrace the Congress. Kamat, however, had come triumphant in the 2005 by-election with a reduced margin against a determined bid by the BJP to suffocate him for quitting the party and bringing down the Manohar Parrikar government in 2005.
Since then, however, there’s been no looking back for Kamat since he not only won the subsequent general election in 2007, but rose to become the State’s chief minister for the full five-year term and successfully retained his seat in the 2012 Assembly election.
Against the bribery charges in the Louis Berger case, the Margao MLA had faced an acid test in the 2015 Municipal poll, but Kamat’s candidates won in six out of the 11 seats, leaving the BJP way behind with the party-backed candidates winning in only two seats in the 11 wards falling in Margao constituency.
