SOIRU VELIP | NT
PANAJI: The break-up of alliance partners – the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party – before the recently-held assembly elections is likely to upset the applecart at North and South Goa zilla panchayats.
Reliable sources said that assembly poll outcome will decide the fate of the BJP-led dispensation at both the ZPs, as alliance partners at the ZPs hinted at withdrawal of support to the ruling factions.
In North Goa zilla panchayat, which has 14 members on its ruling side, the BJP is at the helm with the supporters of the MGP and Atanasio Monserrate.
In South Goa zilla panchayat, the ruling group has 13 members – seven of the BJP, four (MGP) and two from the Goa Vikas Party.
In March 2015, for the first time in the history of Goa, elections to the two ZPs was fought on party lines. The BJP contested the polls to the North Goa ZP in alliance with the MGP.
In South Goa, the BJP joined hands with the MGP, the GVP and two Independent MLAs, who had been supporting the government then.
But the political equations changed in last December when Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar dropped two MGP ministers – Ramakrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar and Pandurang ‘Deepak’ Dhavalikar – from the cabinet following serious differences between the alliance partners.
In the recently-held assembly polls, the BJP and the MGP fought against each other. And Monserrate’s new party UGP and the GVP also slugged it out with the BJP at the elections.
Deepak Dhavalikar, who is MGP president, told ‘The Navhind Times’ on Thursday that the central committee of the party would take a call on the matter at a meeting to be conveyed soon.
“We will discuss the matter at a party meeting. However, the party will wait till the results of assembly elections, and accordingly will take the final decision,” the MGP leader said.
Sources said that Monserrate, who contested the assembly elections in the Panaji constituency against the BJP, has been thinking of withdrawing support to the NGZP’s ruling dispensation after the assembly poll outcome.
It is pertinent to note here that the BJP government had amended the Goa Panchayat and Zilla Panchayat Rules allowing political parties to fight ZP polls. But there is no provision on anti-defection, even though the elections were fought on party symbols.
Condemning the decision of the state government for conducting the ZP polls on party lines, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party had not fielded their candidates in the elections.
However, Congress MLAs had supported Independent candidates.