Minister Bandekar dropped, denied
ticket
Sandesh Prabhudesai
4 April 2002
Following one minister quitting the cabinet
and the saffron party last month, the ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party dropped another minister today, on the eve of Assembly
elections. The drama has begun after the House was prematurely
dissolved on 27 February.
After dropping information minister Sanjay
Bandekar, who had defected the Congress on 21 October 2000
along with three others to join the BJP government, chief
minister Manohar Parrikar alleged the former had been hobnobbing
with Congress leaders for the last six months.
"I was also not happy for almost eight
months with his performance in the ministries of information
as well as civil supplies", Parrikar told a hurriedly convened
press conference in the evening. He describes Bandekar as
a restless and irreparable case.
This was a third term of Bandekar as the
minister, after becoming the minister in 1991 when he defected
from the then Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party to join the
Congress and then again as the Congress minister in 1994.
Though he somehow managed to retain his
Canacona seat in 1999 polls, BJP candidate Vijay Pai Khot
had posed a serious challenge before him. In order to push
the latter as the candidate once again, it appears that
Bandekar has now been denied the BJP ticket.
"I tried my level best to get him ticket,
but failed miserably", said Parrikar, confirming that he
will not get the BJP ticket. Bandekar, who was away in his
constituency in the border taluka of South Goa, was however
not available for comments.
His close associates however claim that
Bandekar has already managed to get the Congress ticket
through a Delhi businessman from Suri Group, who has set
up a five star hotel in Canacona. The action of dropping
him has thus not come as a surprise in his camp.
Unlike Bandekar and Jose Philip D'Souza,
who quit the cabinet post and party
on 3 March, the BJP has however already confirmed tickets
to two one-time Congressmen defectors - industries minister
Shaikh Hassan Haroon and housing minister Babu Azagaonkar,
a dalit.
The sword of uncertainty of getting BJP
tickets however still hangs on three more ministers including
water resources minister Ramakant Khalap, former union law
minister, who even airdashed the national capital last month
to argue his case before the central BJP leaders.
Speculations are also on that Parrikar
plans to drop transport minister Pandurang Raut, belonging
to the MGP, along with his party colleague and Economic
Development Corporation chairman Sudin Dhawalikar, who had
supported the BJP government.
