Parsekar: Who wouldn't like to be Goa chief minister?

PANAJI: Indirectly staking claim to chief ministership if BJP comes back to power, Goa CM Laxmikant Pareskar said he would not shy away from taking up the responsibility . “Who would not like to be CM and why not...,“ Parsekar told TOI in an interview at his ancestral house at the northern tip of Goa at Mandrem.

He clarified he had never asked for the job even when former CM Manohar Parrikar had shifted base to Delhi after taking over as the country's defence minister. “I did not go to Delhi to hobnob with party leaders, nor did I create any groups. I have been a disciplined soldier of the party," Parsekar said, adding he was confident that BJP would come back to power.

He said Union minister Nitin Gadkari's statement that the party was thinking of bringing in a central leader to take over the chief ministership if the party returned to power was a calculated and pre-decided statement. “I was sitting next to him when he made the statement. In fact, prior to the press conference, we had discussed certain probable questions and what would our answers be. So, it was neither humiliating nor embarrassing for me then, nor is it now,“ he said.

Recently, Gadkari, who is BJP in-charge of Goa polls, told reporters that a leader in Delhi could also be made CM, setting rumour circles abuzz that Parrikar may return to head the state.

He also defended denying tickets to speaker

Anant Shet

from

Mayem

and sports minister Ramesh Tawadkar from Canacona and said the party had taken a bold decision by not giving tickets to sitting MLAs for the first time. “By giving seats to them, we would have been in the danger of losing those two constituencies. But by changing the faces, we feel safe of retaining those seats,“ he said.

Without directly commenting on the Church guidelines that had criticised the government's move of setting up investment promotion board to attract industries to the state, Parsekar said though the government gave in principle approval to 151 projects, none of them were power guzzlers or polluting industries. “These 151 projects have the potential to create 25,500 local jobs,“ he said.

On putting up just one woman candidate for the February 4 assembly polls AAP has put up five women candidates, while Congress has fielded three Parsekar said in a state like Goa, being an MLA was a 24-hour job and women would find it difficult to cope with it.