PANAJI
All top leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) went into a huddle Monday night with Maharashtra Opposition Leader Devendra Fadnavis at a city hotel here on a day when the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) snubbed the ruling party and announced a pre-poll deal with the Trinamool Congress.
There was no official word on the nature of the deliberations from any authoritative source in the BJP but the discussions centred around taking stock of the fluid pre-election political situation with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, State president Sadanand Tanavade and party General Secretary (Organisation) Satish Dhond among others holding one-to-one discussions with Fadnavis.
The ruling party was keen on a pre-poll pact with the MGP and had for weeks maintained confidence of clinching it with claims that the matter is being dealt with by the central leaders.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar and ministers Mauvin Godinho, Nilesh Cabral, Dipak Pauskar among others were also holed up at the hotel where Fadnavis is camping.
Some party legislators too called on Fadnavis who is the senior-most Central observer appointed to look after the 2022 election related party work.
The much speculated former chief minister Ravi Naik of the Congress coming into the saffron fold also featured in the discussions as was the adverse reaction of party workers from Saligao to the admission of ex-MLA Jayesh Salgaonkar, a source present at the meetings said.
The ruling BJP has to deal with multiple issues, topmost among which is internal dissenters, particularly Ports Minister Michael Lobo.
Another issue that the party has to troubleshoot are the claims for tickets from loyalists in seats where MLAs defected to the party.
