PANAJI: Mr Vishwajit Rane, who is seeking re-election from Valpoi constituency on a Congress ticket in the by-polls to be held on October 18, has said that while he was trying to garner votes on the plank of development done by him as an independent legislator and Health Minister over the last three years, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party was trying to mislead the voters by engaging in sheer politics.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Rane said that the development done by him over the past three years besides job opportunities created with active support from the Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat, will ensure that he got huge chunk of the votes while his opponent from BJP will lose his security deposit.
Stating that he might not have been able to achieve 100 per cent of what he had planned for his constituency, the Congress nominee for the by polls said that he has done much more than others ever achieved and that Valpoi would be a model constituency once all the on-going works were completed, most probably in the next few months.
Hitting out at the BJP for trying to rake up non-existent issues, he said that the opposition party has failed to carry out development in the constituencies where it was in power and that it was he who ensured that backward areas were brought on development path. He said that the Sattari taluka has developed because his father earlier nursed it well and now he was also doing the same.
Mr Rane said that the opposition party only tried to derive advantage from voters by promising the youth unemployment allowance, which was released to some beneficiaries only once and then withdrawn, and on the other hand he ensured that many competent youth from Valpoi and other areas got the jobs on merit by creating job opportunities.
He said that he has undertaken or got works worth sanctioned in Valpoi constituency as the representative of that constituency even as he said that he would ensure piped water to entire constituency once all the proposed works that have been sanctioned were completed in a year or so but surely before the next general elections to the assembly.
On the issue of his joining the Congress, he said that he was invited by the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, to join the party and he without giving a second thought grabbed the opportunity and quit his seat in assembly to join the party with which his father has been associated for over three decades. He said that henceforth he would remain with Congress, even if he was denied a ticket in the next election.
On his criticism by Mr Laxmikant Parsekar, the state BJP president, Mr Rane said that rather than trying to find faults with him in Valpoi, the BJP president should try to develop his constituency, even as he said that he would pay attention to Mandrem after the by-elections.
Stating that he would go with the people on the issue of permitting mining in his constituency of Valpoi, he went on to add that mining was a major economic contributor and that it would not be wished away just because it would add to environmental issues. He, however, said that he would inform the people about the hazards of mining particularly in Paikul area where the mining activity proposed to be started was nearer to a proposed water treatment plant.
