Upset with BJP Goa unit, former minister writes to PM

Panaji: A senior BJP Goa leader and former state minister Wilfred Mesquita has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing his displeasure against the goings-on in the local party unit claiming that they have been “patronising corruption” and working against his (PM’s) objectives.

“Fighting for systemic change, cleaning the economy to free the country from corruption, bringing crooks to justice, punishing politicians who use and generate black money and many more changes are some of your avowed objectives,” Mesquita, who is also Commissioner for NRI affairs, said in a letter to the PM, a copy of which is with PTI.

“In Goa, unfortunately the opposite happens,” he claimed in the letter dated January 6, 2017 which is also addressed to party president Amit Shah.

Mesquita has pointed out to the induction of two former Congress legislators – Mauvin Godinho and Pandurang Madkaikar – into the party fold to support his claim against the local party unit.

“There is no better example of political expediency than the recent admission of two corrupt Congress party legislators, so branded by the BJP itself, which apparently were a liability to Congress,” he has said.

“BJP leaders in Goa never wasted an opportunity and in fact used every platform including the precincts of the August house of the people s representatives (Goa Legislative Assembly) to denigrate these two MLAs whom they have now embraced,” the letter read.

“As a result BJP leaders in particular and the party in Goa in general have lost their credibility. The public now wonders whether these leaders are adept in spreading falsehood and lies and in character assassination with the sole aim of fooling them,” Mesquita said.

“Is the decision of BJP to admit these two (leaders) branded by the very same party as corrupt Congress MLAs and their acolytes in the party fold, signal that party s (BJP’s) new vision is to patronise corruption ? (Are) the gates of dishonesty in BJP wide open now ?,” he questioned.

In the run up to the upcoming State legislative assembly elections, Godinho and Madkaikar were admitted in the BJP.

Their names also figure in the first list of candidates announced in Delhi by the BJP high command.