In Goa, Nadda backs Pramod Sawant, says he has done good work
Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 25
Ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, BJP president JP Nadda on Sunday said the party will be “going forward” with incumbent CM Pramod Sawant as its face.
In Goa for a two-day visit to kickstart the party’s strategy for the upcoming polls to the 40-member Assembly, Nadda said Sawant has “done a very good job. Under his leadership, all-round development has taken place. We are going forward with him (as CM face in 2022 elections). In BJP, Parliamentary Board makes the official declaration but there is no need to think about any other name”.
Speaking to the media, the BJP president also dismissed as “baseless and issueless” the Pegasus spyware controversy. “The Opposition led by Congress has got no issue which is related to people. That is why they raise such issues,” Nadda said addressing a press conference in the tiny beach state today.
Accompanied by Sawant, state party president Sadanand Shet Tanavade and other leaders, Nadda also exuded confidence about his party’s prospects in the next elections.
This will be the first time that BJP will go to polls in the state without Manohar Parrikar, the late Goa CM who managed to give a certain edge to the saffron party with his popularity and charisma. Nadda’s visit to Goa comes at a time when the party is under deep stress with opposition parties accusing it of “jumla politics and fake promises and Covid mismanagement”.
Sources say during the internal discussions with the party president, several ministers, and MLAs raised serious concerns regarding issues, including “employment situation, resumption of mining activities and apprehensions among minorities”.
Though the BJP failed to get the majority in the 2017 Assembly elections, it managed to form the government with the help of Parrikar, then the defence minister in the Narendra Modi government. Parrikar was sworn in as CM of Goa in March 2017 after the Goa Forward Party, one of the parties that allied with the BJP after results, said it would support only if Parrikar was brought back to Goa as the CM.
The GFP walked out of NDA earlier this year.
