BJP drops ministers Deepak Pauskar and Filipe Rodrigues from candidates list for the upcoming Goa assembly elections.
GT Team
Bharatiya Janata Party has dropped two of their ministers- Filipe Nery Rodrigues and Deepak Pauskar- from the list of 34 candidates released on Thursday, ahead of next month's Goa Assembly election.
Deepak Prabhu Pauskar is the incumbent minister of the Public Works Department (PWD) while Filipe Nery Rodrigues is the Water Resources minister in the Pramod Sawant cabinet.
Pauskar, who was elected to the Goa Legislative Assembly from Sanvordem constituency in the 2017 Goa Legislative Assembly election, was denied a ticket by the BJP, who chose to field Ganesh Gaonkar instead.
Velim's MLA Rodriguez was preparing to resign from his ministry and legislature on Wednesday only to change his mind at the last moment, opting to discuss with his supporters before making a decision. He was also one of the ten ministers of the Indian National Congress who controversially joined BJP in 2019.
It was earlier reported that he would resign from BJP to join Trinamool, only for him to later confirm that he had not yet decided which party to join.
"All political parties, including TMC and NCP, have approached me to contest the assembly election on their ticket, but I am not in a hurry to take a decision. I will consult my people before taking any decision. I have deferred my decision to quit as minister and MLA," Rodriguez said on Wednesday.
The election for Goa's 40 seats will take place on February 14, and the ballots will be counted on March 10.