Moreover, it was wrong on the part of Cabral to accept a challenge for debate in the first place. I mean, why he should? Consider a regional Goan outfit like MGP or Goa Forward, wanting to contest elections in Delhi, challenges Arvind Kejriwal over his free water and power. Would he accept the challenge? It makes no sense.
AAP will contest elections in 2022; it has to criticise the State government policies, announce freebies, and challenge leaders, which does not mean ministers and MLAs brainlessly accept the challenge.
That one mistake of Cabral and the government has given AAP a foothold in the State.
As if that was not enough, on August 15, Chief Minister announced free 16000 litres of water, which was considered tit for tat scheme against Kejriwal’s free power scheme.
SURAJ NANDREKAR
Editor, Goemkarponn
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has just one Zilla Parishad member in the State, forget about MLAs, and the MP’s, seems to be giving sleepless nights to the mighty Bharatiya Janata Party in the State and particularly the Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant.
For the last one year, the Arvind Kejriwal led party has been making announcements be it free electricity or free pilgrimage or naming the Bhandari Samaj Chief Minister; all these statements have ruffled the feathers in the BJP camp.
The BJP has been trying to negate all the above freebies through some vague statements and assurances.
First, on the free power issue of up to 300 units, power minister Nilesh Cabral had two debates with AAP leaders, first with Valmiki Naik and then with Delhi Power Minister Satyendra Jain, but nothing really came out of those debates as it proved to be a waste of money and time.
Moreover, it was wrong on the part of Cabral to accept a challenge for debate in the first place. I mean, why he should? Consider a regional Goan outfit like MGP or Goa Forward, wanting to contest elections in Delhi, challenges Arvind Kejriwal over his free water and power. Would he accept the challenge? It makes no sense.
AAP will contest elections in 2022; it has to criticise the State government policies, announce freebies, and challenge leaders, which does not mean ministers and MLAs brainlessly accept the challenge.
That one mistake of Cabral and the government has given AAP a foothold in the State.
As if that was not enough, on August 15, Chief Minister announced free 16000 litres of water, which was considered tit for tat scheme against Kejriwal’s free power scheme.
But in the guise of free water, the government has instead increased the water tariff. The CM has thus become a subject of memes for the netizens.
After the free power, Kejriwal announced free allowances for tourism stakeholders, mining dependents, and unemployment allowance.
This triggered yet another unrest in the BJP, who announced the COVID19 relief scheme of Rs 5000 for those affected by the pandemic, but only a few have received the aid.
Thereafter, Kejriwal announced the pilgrimage scheme wherein AAP would start pilgrimage tours to Vailankanni, Shirdi, Azmer Sharif and Ayodhya if voted to power.
Again the Sawant government and the BJP were rattled. The CM immediately announced that Kejriwal had been copying his scheme, which was announced in Budget.
Mr CM, you have just announced, the AAP in Delhi has implemented the scheme since 2016. So who has copied the scheme?
However, nobody expected the CM or BJP to be so serious about the pilgrimage announcement as not many Goans seemed interested in the scheme.
But shockingly, CM taking no chances put the Social Welfare minister on the job, and as such, the pilgrimage scheme of the State government would finally be rolled out from December 1.
AAP’s announcement of Bhandari CM directly targeted the BJP vote bank. The Bhandari’s have suddenly discovered their strength, and the saffron brigade, which has always taken Bhandaris for granted, is now busy doing firefighting.
With knee-jerk reactions from the CM and the BJP, the AAP, which has no MLAs or MLAs in State, suddenly finds itself in a strong position and seems to be setting the agenda for CMs actions.
