Gadkari says before BJP’s stable Govt, Goa was a garden of defectors under Congress regime

Nitin Gadkari releases party’s 22-resolution manifesto for 2022 Goa Assembly polls

@the_news_21

Mumbai: Equating Goa to “a garden” where defectors moved from one party to another under erstwhile Congress-led governments, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister for Road Transport Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday argued that it was only under the leaderships of the late Manohar Parrikar and incumbent BJP Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant that Goans had had a stable, development-oriented government. 

He said this after releasing the ruling BJP’s poll manifesto for the upcoming Goa Assembly elections. The saffron party has made 22 resolutions (to rhyme with its stated aim of winning 22-plus seats in the 2022 election) for Goa’s development. 

Releasing the partys election manifesto, Gadkari remarked, “After the late Manohar Parrikar’s first term as Goa CM ended in 2005, the State had become like a garden, where people moved from one end to another. Goa had become famous in the country as a State of political defections. It was the BJP in the last ten years that has given it stability…What had not happened in the last 50 years, the BJP under first Manohar Parrikar, and then Pramod Sawant’s leadership has given stability to the State.”

He further claimed that Dr Pramod Sawant’s government had fulfilled nearly 80% of the promises in the party’s 2017 manifesto. 

Incidentally, the BJP under Dr Pramod Sawant leadership had split its erstwhile ally, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) by poaching its MLAs and then inducted 10 of Congress MLAs, who defected to the BJP in July 2019.  

Among the many resolutions promised in the current manifesto, the BJP has promised to provide quality housing for all Goans by giving home loans for deserving families at low interest rates – 2% for women and 4% for men.  

The manifesto further promises three free LPG cylinders to every household besides enlisting big plans for an environment-friendly Goa with an emphasis on increasing employment opportunities by boosting tourism. The poll promises also resolve to transform Goa into the country’s health and wellness hub and make it a premier destination for co-working spaces and remote working in a post-pandemic world.  

Nitin Gadkari further added, “I am pleased that the present government has made a resolution to make Goa ‘carbon neutral’. It is a critical issue to make Goa free of air, sound and water pollution. The Chief Minister subsidies for electric buses and taxis.” 

Arguing that Goa had witnessed a “revolutionary change in infrastructure” in the past five years, the Union Minister further stated that the coastal State would be getting a further Rs. 40,000 crores in the coming five years, with a significant amount of funds devoted to improving road networks and port facilities. 

Ridiculing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s scheme of ‘mohalla clinics’, Nitin Gadkari said that Goa had among the country’s best healthcare services and had no requirement of mohalla clinics.  

Stressing upon the strength of ‘double-engine’ growth (BJP government at the Centre and the State), Dr Pramod Sawant said that the 22 resolutions made in the poll manifesto were not “mere promises but a set of ideals backed with a comprehensive plan to achieve them.”