BJP should not take me for granted: Laxmikant Parsekar
Panaji, Oct 30: As the ruling BJP is eyeing to field former Congress MLA Dayanand Sopte for the upcoming Mandrem Assembly bypoll in Goa, former state Chief Minister and BJP leader Laxmikant Parsekar Tuesday indicated that he might rebel against his party.
Sopte and another Congress MLA recently resigned as members of the Goa Legislative Assembly and joined the BJP, dealing a blow to the opposition party in the state.
Now, as the Congress started consolidating anti-BJP forces ahead of the upcoming bypoll in Mandrem Assembly, Parsekar said the BJP should stop taking him for granted.
His statement comes two days after Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) chief Girish Chodankar met him at Mandrem, which the former had represented in the state assembly till 2017.
Parsekar had lost to Sopte from Mandrem constituency in north Goa in the February 2017 Assembly polls.
Earlier, Parsekar had criticised BJP's Goa unit chief Vinay Tendulkar for not taking him into confidence while inducting Sopte.
"I will not reveal all my cards now. There is a feeling in BJP that I will never rebel against the party or I will never leave it (party). Sometimes, your virtues act as negatives and that has happened in my case. But this time, the party should not take me for granted," Parsekar said.
Although he confirmed that Chodankar had met him, Parsekar refused to elaborate about the meeting.
"These days there are many people who come and meet me. Chodankar had also come. There were some discussions," he said.
Parsekar said the Mandrem block of the BJP still considers him (Parsekar) as the candidate from the constituency.
"Let the elections be announced. Let the candidates be announced...then I will reveal my stand," he said.
When contacted, Chodankar said the Congress has been meeting all the "anti-BJP forces".
"We are rallying against Sopte, who is the probable BJP candidate in the constituency. We will defeat him in the constituency and our exercise in that direction has begun," he said.
Chodankar also refused to divulge the details of the meeting with Parsekar, but said "everyone will come together to defeat the BJP candidate".
Parsekar, who was the chief minister of Goa between 2014 and 2017, is one of the oldest members of the BJP. He had joined the party in 1994.
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Ahmedabad plane crash: Six months on, college hostel lies in ruins, sans bustle of students
Ahmedabad (PTI): Six months after the AI-171 plane crash, the B J Medical College hostel complex in Ahmedabad stands as a haunting reminder, with its charred walls and burnt trees replacing the once lively chatter of students with an eerie stillness.
Scattered across the crash site are grim remnants of daily life - burnt cars and motorcycles, twisted beds and furniture, charred books, clothes and personal belongings.
The Atulyam-4 hostel building and the adjoining canteen complex stand abandoned, with entry strictly prohibited.
For residents near the site, memories of the incident still linger, casting a lasting shadow on their lives, with some of them saying they are still afraid to look up at the sky when an aircraft passes overhead.
On June 12, Air India flight AI-171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London, crashed moments after take-off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, killing 260 persons.
The aircraft slammed into the BJ Medical College hostel complex in Meghaninagar, turning a lively student neighbourhood into a landscape of ruin and grief.
"The area now lies very silent, only a few birds chirp here," Sanjaybhai, a security guard deployed at the premises by authorities to prevent trespassing, told PTI.
Mahendrasingh Jadeja, a general store owner whose shop is just 50 metres from the point where the aircraft struck, described it as an unimaginable calamity. "In all my years, I have never seen anything like this."
Pointing to a tree behind his shop, the 60-year-old said the aircraft first struck there before crashing into the hostel building.
"It was a scorching summer afternoon. Not many people were outside. When I heard a loud crashing sound, I ran out of my shop. We were all terrified," he recalled.
"Even today, we instinctively look up whenever a plane passes overhead," he added.
Another local, Manubhai Rajput, who lives barely 200 metres from the site, said he witnessed the horror unfold on June 12.
"The plane was flying unusually low. Before I could understand what was happening, there was thick black smoke and a deafening crash," he said.
For over three decades, Rajput and his neighbours lived close to the airport without giving much thought to the aircraft overhead.
"We never looked up at the sky. But that day is etched in my mind. The plane hit a tree first, and then there was a loud sound," he said.
Rajput recalled how hundreds of locals rushed to the site even before police, fire services or the Army arrived.
Tinaben, another resident of Meghaninagar, said she never imagined something like this could happen in Ahmedabad.
"Despite being close to the airport, this area always felt safe," she said.
As an aircraft roared overhead during the conversation, Tinaben paused, looked up nervously and said, "It's still scary."
A senior official of Civil Hospital Ahmedabad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the state government has yet to decide what to do with the damaged site.
Currently, investigations are going on and the site is strictly prohibited for people, he added.
