Catholic voters looking for alternative in AAP

Panaji: Even as he welcomed Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s announcement that AAP will contest all seats in the state for the next assembly election, chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Monday said that party will not be able to open “its account” in the state.
Parsekar told TOI said APP’s contesting assembly elections 2017 would damage the Congress party as a sizeable part of those who attended the AAP meeting on Sunday comprised of minority voters.“The party that created the political vacuum will be affected. BJP has not created any political vacuum and neither has it ignored any constituency,” he added.
AAP, Parsekar said, would create inroads in Congress constituencies as the Catholic voters were in search of an alternative, quickly adding that the educated Catholic would never vote for the AAP.
“Some Catholics are disgruntled with the BJP and are testing AAP as an alternate option, and even then they will not accept AAP in Goa,” Parsekar said. People of Goa do not vote on “emotions”, they only vote for sincere candidates, he opined.
He recollected how 25 years ago when former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and senior BJP leader L K Advani would come to Goa to deliver speeches they would draw a 20,000 to 50,000-strong crowd, but come ballot time this would translate to hardly some 250 votes.
AAP brought in people from Karnataka, Punjab, Maharashtra and Delhi, Parsekar said. “People of the state will not fall prey to Kejriwal’s nautanki style,” he added saying that banners, posters and hoardings will not garner votes for AAP.
“AAP should forget about this assembly elections. It should work sincerely for the next five years to win seats in the next assembly election.”
When questioned about Kejriwal’s statement that it was defence minister Manohar Parrikar who was running the state government, Parsekar said that it was simple a matter of not having any allegations to make against him. “Saying that it is Parrikar who is runnng the goverment was the last option left to Kejriwal to hit out at me,” he said further questioning sarcastically if Parrikar has a magic wand by means of which he could run the state government from Delhi.
“I have been working day and night in clearing files and running the state.”
On Kejriwal’s comment that tourism in the state was being promoted as sex, drugs and gambling, Parsekar said that while he agreed that illegal activities were carried out in the state, the BJP government was not using drugs, sex and gambling to promote the state’s tourism industry.