Utpal Parrikar , the son of former Union minister and four-time Goa chief minister the late Manohar Parrikar, resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday, and announced that he will contest the upcoming assembly elections as an independent candidate from Panaji, the seat represented by his father from 1994 until his death in 2019.
Utpal Parrikar, 40,was denied a ticket by the party leadership, which chose to instead field Atanasio “Babush” Monserrate, who won the seat in 2019 on a Congress ticket in a by-election held to fill the vacancy resulting from Parrikar’s death.
“Utpal’s prowess in Panaji is still something he has to prove on ground. During the last few elections, his father won Panaji through tacit alignment with Monserrate. But Uptal’s decision will have a broad impact on the BJP, especially because it’s claim of being a party which wants to take forward Parrikar’s legacy has now been found hollow in the wake of Utpal’s moves,” Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, journalist and author of the book ‘Manohar Parrikar: An Extraordinary Life’, said.
“People of Panaji did not vote for Manohar Parrikar just because he is MP. They voted for him because he stood for some values. The time has come for me to also stand for those values. I would like to announce that I will be contesting as an independent candidate from Panaji constituency,” Parrikar said on Friday.
“I tried my best even during last elections and this election to convince my party that I enjoy not only the support of all the workers, who have built this party for the last 30 years, who toiled with my father to build this party in Panaji. They are also toiling with me today. I have also enjoyed their support and the support of the general population of Panaji. In spite of that, for some reason I have not been able to get the candidature of Panaji constituency. It has been given to someone who has opportunistically come into the party within the last two years,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“I tried my best even during last elections and this election to convince my party that I enjoy not only the support of all the workers, who have built this party for the last 30 years, who toiled with my father to build this party in Panaji. They are also toiling with me today. I have also enjoyed their support and the support of the general population of Panaji. In spite of that, for some reason I have not been able to get the candidature of Panaji constituency. It has been given to someone who has opportunistically come into the party within the last two years,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}The BJP offered Utpal two other seats to pick from, but he rejected both and questioned state in-charge Devendra Fadnavis who earlier said that the party does not hand out tickets just because someone is Manohar Parrikar’s son.
“If the party does not hand out tickets just because you are somebody’s son then why was I being offered other seats? I am not asking for the ticket because I want something on the platter,” Parrikar said.
When asked whether he would support the BJP in the future in a possible post-poll scenario, he said that he will place such decisions before the people of Goa at the right time.
Parrikar also welcomed the support he was receiving from other political parties, notably the Shiv Sena, which said that should he decide to contest, other parties should support him. “Any support required to fight the type of candidate I am fighting is welcome,” he said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had offered to field Utpal from Panaji if he joined the party, however, he said he had not considered joining another party.
“As far as political party is concerned, only party available to me is the BJP. The other platform is as an independent -- my own platform-- which I had to do unfortunately in these circumstances for the values I believe in,” he said.
The ruling BJP, in its first list of candidates on Thursday, ignored Parrikar’s claim for the Panaji seat and instead chose Monserrate, who joined the BJP from the Congress in 2019 along with nine other MLAs. Monserrate, who is facing trial for multiple charges including rape and rioting, was preferred on grounds of “winnability” with the party’s state in-charge Fadnavis saying that he was given the ticket because he was the “sitting MLA”.
“A sitting MLA has been given a ticket in Panaji. Parrikar’s family is our family. They are close to us. I had given Utpal Parrikar two options, from where he could contest. BJP has respected the Parrikar family,” Fadnavis said.
“The BJP had ample grounds to reject Babush’s claim for a ticket -- his history of jumping parties, his criminal background, his unabashed desire for power. They could have given the ticket to another person for whom giving the ticket would be easier to justify. It didn’t have to be a choice between Utpal and Babush. Besides the bad press, the decision could yet prove to be a strategic blunder,” senior journalist Vasudev Pagi said.