Sitting in the drawing room of his ancestral house in the northern most tip of Goa at Mandrem, chief minister
Laxmikant Parsekar is confident BJP will return to power with absolute majority. In midst of his hectic campaigning, Parsekar took time out to discuss various issues: From views on the Church guidelines to lack of women representation to corruption.
There has been resentment among the cadre and people of the state against BJP. Do you think you will be able to come back to office and have you made an assessment of the number of seats that you will win? I am fully confident that the BJP will come back to office with absolute majority. Our graph is a gradual upwardly graph in Goa. We started from zero and in 1994 we won four seats. From there we won 10, 14, 17, and in the last polls, we had 21 seats. The growth of the organization and that in the assembly has been similar. In the past five years we were in office, unfortunately due to blanket ban on mining our revenue receipts reduced by around 22% and we had a loss of about Rs 1,200-1,400 crore every year. But despite that we have been able to manage very well and give quality infrastructure to people. We even have a robust social security net which has never been experienced by the people. Based on this performance we are going to people.
This time you have denied tickets to your speaker Anant Shet
and sports minister Ramesh Tawadkar
. What was the reason behind dropping them? It has been our experience that in every election, though our tally has increased, our sitting MLAs who may be ministers have lost and we have compensated by capturing new constituencies. In the past, we dared not refuse ticket to a sitting MLA and if the sitting MLA lost, we had to wait for five years to recapture that constituency. So, for the first time the party has decided to take a bold decision by denying tickets to sitting MLAs—Shet (from Mayem) and Tawadkar (from Canacona). I don’t have any ill-feeling towards Shet. But over a period of two terms, there has been a public opinion against him and therefore, the party decided to field another candidate. By giving seats to them, we would have been in the danger of losing those two constituencies. But by changing the faces, we feel we are safe of retaining those seats. Let us see the outcome. We will see what will be the future experience.
Though your party has not projected a chief minister candidate, if BJP comes back to office will you be the CM pick of the party? Who would not like to be the CM and why not? Look, at no point of time, even when defence minister
Manohar Parrikar was pulled to Delhi and you can ask anyone during those four days when we were deciding our chief minister, did I go to Delhi to hobnob with party leaders or was I seen with a group of MLAs to show that I have support of so many legislators. I did not request anybody. I have been a disciplined soldier of the party from the beginning and 20 years ago I did not even expect the BJP will form the government. I only had one dream: To become an MLA. Initially, minorities were shying away from BJP but over a period of time, we got accepted and BJP candidates started getting elected. This time I am confident that we will have triple the number of MLAs from Catholic community than the Congress.
The Church has come out with guidelines where it said digital economy is a worrisome phenomenon and even criticized investment promotion board. What are your views on it? We have always had the interest of the state before anything else. Through investment promotion board (IPB), we have given in principle clearances to 151 projects. These 151 projects have the potential to create 25,500 jobs and none of them are power guzzlers or polluting. All these projects will create local jobs and we do not need to import labour for it. It will boost the economy without affecting the environment. We have taken a careful and bold decision to create employment opportunities for locals and that will be the main agenda of our government for next term.
Though there are a lot of women empowerment schemes, when it comes to allotment of tickets, except for RDA minister Alina Saldana, you haven’t put up a single women candidate for election? We are strengthening our women cadre. In fact, Goa is the only state where there are maximum facilities for women and we can feel its impact from the support we get from the women community. But when it comes to politics and in particular the politics of legislative assembly, I feel being an MLA is a 24-hour job. I know in Goa, people want their MLA at their beck and call—if they want their electric fixtures to be fixed, they want a tap to be replaced or if someone is sick in their family to accompany them to the hospital in the night or sit with the sick person… they expect the MLA to be present for everything, which is difficult for women to do. In all other spheres except politics, women in Goa are doing far, far better than the other states.
What we have done is give reservation to women in panchayats, zilla panchayts. About 15 years ago, they were uncomfortable in those positions, but now they are comfortably handling the role of panchs, sarpanchs and zilla panchayat members. I feel over a period of another 10 years, we will be able to get good women legislators.
Recently, Union minister Nitin Gadkari, in your presence, announced that the party is thinking of bringing in a party official from Delhi to be the chief minister if BJP is re-elected. Was it embarrassing and humiliating for you? Not at all. In fact, prior to the press conference we had discussed certain probable questions and what would our answers be. And this was part of that discussion. So, it was neither humiliating nor embarrassing for me then nor is it now.
During your election campaign you admitted that the government has not been able to do much on the corruption front. What was the reason? Actually, I did not say we have not been able to do much. What I said was that my priorities were towards development—Mopa airport, electronic city and various other development works and schemes. So, I had to prioritize. If one has to do something on corruption, then it has to be hammered again and again. People punished those who were corrupt in the last elections. Why should I kick them again? So, I let the natural course to follow. I am not a revengeful person.
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