Barely after a day PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar said he was ready to support MLA Naresh Sawal if the MGP-BJP alliance ticket was allotted to the Bicholim MLA on joining the MGP, Bicholim BJP Block members said Bicholim ticket should only be given to a BJP candidate. The members were addressing a news conference at Bicholim BJP office following reports that Bicholim MLA Naresh Sawal would join MGP and was likely to get the Bicholim ticket. President of the Bicholim BJP mandal Vallabh Salkar and others claimed that the party’s brass, including president Amit Shah, had assured them that the Bicholim ticket would be given only to the BJP candidate and would not be shared with the MGP during the seat-sharing exercise.
[su_expand more_text=”READ MORE” less_text=” ” height=”0″ hide_less=”yes” link_style=”button” link_align=”center”]According to the sources, Salkar said, “The BJP has been working for the welfare of people at the grassroots level for several years now, while MGP stopped doing so after 1999. Hence, giving the Bicholim ticket to any other candidate won’t be a fair decision,” Adding to that he also said that, “We respect the alliance between BJP and MGP for the last five years. The alliance will continue and the chief minister had also said all the 28 seats that BJP had with it, will remain with the party,”
Former Bicholim MLA Rajesh Patnekar, who was also presented at the press conference, said the saffron party has implemented several schemes over the last five year and that handing over the Bicholim seat to the alliance partner “would merely be a game of foolishness”.
Speaking on BJP candidature in Bicholim, the block president said it would be decided by the high command. “All of us will work for the candidate, who will be decided by the final authority,” Salkar said.
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