Mumbai: As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prepares to fight the first state election in Goa since former CM and BJP leader Manohar Parrikar’s death in 2019, his son, Utpal Parrikar, has staked claim to the former Union minister’s legacy. He has urged the party to field him from Panaji — the constituency the former chief minister served for nearly 25 years.
Speaking to ThePrint over the phone Thursday, Utpal — who is Manohar Parrikar’s elder son — said he has been traveling around the constituency of Panaji, talking to BJP workers who had been loyal to his father and claimed they all want him to contest the upcoming assembly elections, scheduled to be held in February 2022.
“In most of the seats in Goa, the incumbent MLA serves at most two terms, but my father represented the seat for so many decades. Because of that, people of Panaji have some expectations,” Utpal told ThePrint.
“When we talk about my father’s legacy it has to be honoured and can’t be allowed to wither away. I have the support of core BJP workers,” he added.
Manohar Parrikar, who died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer in March 2019, is credited with expanding the BJP’s base in Goa. The four-time CM had made Panaji a BJP stronghold for almost 25 years.
His appeal in Goa was so strong that, in 2017, when the BJP cobbled together an alliance with regional outfits Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP), the party brought Parrikar — then the Union defence minister — back to the coastal state to be the consensus CM candidate.
Even when Parrikar was severely ill and in and out of Goa for medical treatment from February 2018 onwards, the BJP still retained him as CM so as to not disturb the shaky three-party coalition government it had formed in India’s smallest state.
Utpal said while his father had a mass appeal among all of Goa’s communities, the BJP has the “potential to make up for the loss due to its strong organisational strength”.
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‘Met Fadnavis, confident that party will consider my candidature’
Utpal, 38, also wanted to contest the Panaji bypoll in 2019 to fill the seat vacated by senior Parrikar’s death. However, the BJP at the time denied him candidature and chose to field Sidharth Kuncalienker instead.
The BJP lost the seat, considered to be its most prestigious in Goa, for the first time in 25 years to Atanasio Monserrate, popularly known as Babush, who was then with the Congress. Utpal had refused to criticise the BJP then, saying that the party will “introspect” on the results and ensure a win in the next election.
“At that time I respected that decision. This time around, I have the support of all core BJP voters in Panaji,” Utpal told ThePrint. “I have requested the party to consider my candidature and I am confident that they will take it in a positive way and consider the same.”
He added that he had also met BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis for 20 minutes earlier this month during the latter’s maiden visit to Goa as the party’s in-charge of poll preparations in the state.
On whether he might consider contesting as a rebel candidate if denied a ticket this time too, Utpal said, “The party has a process, the process is only starting now. All that (what happens if he is denied a ticket), I will talk about later. My focus is to meet the BJP workers and core voters and I am confident that the party will see the karyakartas’ sentiments.”
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Decision may not be easy for BJP
The decision on whether to field the dynast may not be an easy one for the Goa BJP leadership.
The current Panaji MLA, Monserrate, who had won as a Congress candidate, jumped to the BJP in July 2019 along with nine other party MLAs — including his wife Jennifer Monserrate — boosting the party’s strength in the 40-member house to a comfortable figure of 27.
The defection helped the BJP reduce the strength of the Congress, which was the single-largest party in the house with 17 seats after the 2017 election, to five with two more MLAs having defected earlier. In March this year, Monserrate also helped the BJP win 25 of 30 seats in the Panaji municipal elections.
Utpal has been at odds with Monserrate, who was among Manohar Parrikar’s rivals in Panaji. The differences between Monserrate and Utpal were especially visible in the municipal election in Panaji. While civic elections in Goa are not contested on party lines, local MLAs are known to field a panel of candidates whom they publicly back.
In the civic polls, while the BJP backed Monserrate’s panel, Utpal and Kuncalienkar backed some other candidates.
Utpal told ThePrint, “The Panaji civic body includes parts of the Panaji constituency and the Taleigao constituency. Although many people were interested in taking my support, I never rebelled against traditional BJP workers. Most of the seats that form part of the Panaji constituency were won by traditional BJP workers. The current MLA mostly got the seats that were part of Taleigao.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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