Former Goa chief minister and senior BJP leader Laxmikant Parsekar, who was denied ticket by the party for the upcoming state Assembly elections, has resigned from from the ruling party.
Parsekar has served as the 12th chief minister of the coastal state from November 2014 to March 2017.
Parsekar is the chief of BJP's manifesto committee for the upcoming Goa Legislative Assembly election and was also a member of the party's Core Committee.
Speaking to ANI, Parsekar said, “I was an honest BJP worker. Whatever development work I did was done from public money and not from my pocket. But today, those development works are pending. I feel it is my responsibility to do that. If they are not completed then the grief of wasting public money will remain in my mind."
"So, to complete that development work, I do not have to join the party in the government. I do not even have to be a minister or a chief minister. I can also complete those development works as an MLA."
BJP has nominated sitting MLA Dayanand Sopte from the Mandrem Assembly segment. Sopte had defeated Parsekar in 2017 elections as a Congress candidate, but joined the BJP in 2019.
This is second high-profile exit from BJP in two days. On Friday, Utpal Parrikar, son of former CM Manohar Parrikar, resigned from the primary membership of BJP after the party denied him a ticket from Panaji constituency and fielded Congress party turncoat Atanasio "Babush" Monserrate.
Parrikar will contest the upcoming election as an independent candidate.
BJP on Thursday released its first list of 34 candidates for the upcoming Goa assembly election.Goa will go to the assembly polls on February 14.
With agency inputs
