Panaji: Utpal Parrikar, son of former Goa CM Manohar Parrikar, who was denied BJP ticket, has announced that he will fight the upcoming Assembly polls as an independent candidate from his father’s seat Panaji. Utpal has also announced his resignation from BJP.
Manohar Parrikar, BJP’s most popular face in Goa, had held the Panaji constituency for 25 years before his death in 2019. But the party has chosen its sitting, controversial MLA Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate – the lifelong rival of Manohar Parrikar, over his son. Atanasio Monseratte, accused in a rape case, had changed camp in July 2019 along with nine other Congress leaders.
‘I tried my best even during last and this election to convince my party that I enjoyed not only the support of all the party members, I also enjoy the support of general people of Panaji’, Utpal Parrikar told reporters this evening. ‘Despite that, I am unable to get the candidature of Panaji constituency. It has been given to someone who has opportunistically come in the party in last two years… That’s why I want to go ahead and let the people of Panaji decide my political fate’, he added.
Earlier in 2019, Utpal Parrikar had expressed his wish to contest the by-elections from the Panaji seat, which fell vacant after his father’s death. But the party wanted him to back Sidharth Kuncolienkar, a Parrikar loyalist. In the bypolls, BJP lost the seat to the Congress after 25 years, and Monseratte was the winning candidate, soon after which he defected to BJP. Elections to Goa’s 40-member state Assembly will be held on February 14 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10.
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