the goan I network
MARGAO
The United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) has cold-shouldered the deadline set by Mickky Pacheco, with the regional party asserting that the former Minister cannot dictate terms to the party and may chart out his own political course and contest the ensuing Lok Sabha election.
In fact, UGDP ideologue and party senior vice-president, Adv Radharao Gracias said the UGDP will go all out to oppose the BJP in the ensuing 2019 Lok Sabha polls, saying that if the BJP is not stopped from returning to power in the coming election, people of India may even lose the right to vote in the future.
Speaking to The Goan, Adv Radharao Gracias said there are no two opinions that the BJP should be stopped from returning to power in the 2019 election. “By saying so, I do not say that the UGDP will automatically support the Congress in the coming election. I feel that all the non-BJP parties and groups should join together to support a common candidate against the BJP. But the prevailing situation shows that the Congress may emerge as a natural choice to field a common candidate given the party’s present strength in the Legislative Assembly and the party set up,” he said.
The UGDP senior leader further pointed that it’s not just the pulse and the mood of the people which has made him to think of defeating the BJP in the coming election, but the damage that the ruling dispensation has made to the institutions in the country during the last four years. “If this is not curbed by defeating the BJP, we may exercise the right to vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha election for the last time if the BJP returns back to power,” he said.
Asked to comment on Mickky Pacheco’s warning to the UGDP leadership to decide fast on his association with the regional party, Adv Radharao shot back saying “Mickky cannot dictate terms to the UGDP leaders. He is entitled to his own view point, but he cannot force the leadership of the regional party to take a particular decision,” reiterating that Mickky is free to float his own political party or chart out his own political course.
“Mickky had met me and also the party General Secretary Adv Anacleto Viegas on his proposal to associate with the UGDP. We were open to his idea of returning back to the party fold, but he cannot make the party to toe a particular political line per se, we do not support the Congress party, but the ground reality shows that the Congress party, with its set up and MLAs in the Legislative Assembly, may be in a better position with support of all groups and parties to defeat the BJP in the coming polls,” he asserted.
Former Minister Mickky Pacheco had on Sunday last set a deadline on the UGDP leadership to either decide whether to maintain a non-BJP, non-Congress stand in the coming election, or he may go ahead with his plan to launch a new political party.
The former three-time MLA had made it clear that he may think of returning back to the UGDP fold only if the party leadership takes a clear stand that the regional party will oppose both the national parties, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress.
