Sr Prakash Velip from Quepem brought back to the BJP fold
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 27 February 2016 21:05 IST
After four years and 15 days, Prakash Shankar Velip is back in the Bharatiya Janata Party.
He had quit the party on 12 February, on the eve of 2012 Assembly election, to unsuccessfully contest as an independent.
In the BJP-MGP alliance, the Quepem seat was allotted to the junior partner with Prakash Arjun Velip as the candidate.
While Senior Prakash had lost the seat twice to Congress MLA Babu Kavalekar since 2002 election, the MGP’s junior Prakash also lost it, once again to Kavalekar.
Though Kavalekar gained due to split of votes between both Prakash, senior Velip proved to the party that their decision was wrong.
Pushing down the alliance candidate to the third position, Velip scored second position in a four-corner fight in 2012.
“The request for homecoming had come six months ago, but I needed time to take a decision”, Velip told goanews.com.
After having final talks with defence minister Manohar Parrikar today, BJP president Vinay Tendulkar announced the homecoming along with his few key workers.
He has also been made one of the senior vice presidents of the BJP now.
The tribal leader had in the past become very critical about the BJP government due to the ill-treatment it gave to the United Tribals’ Association Alliance (UTAA).
“Many demands of UTAA are still not met, at the state as well as central level. That would be my priority”, said the 62-year old veteran politician at the press conference.
Interestingly, the four-time MGP legislator since 1984 has not won a single election on the BJP ticket till date, but has enjoyed several positions during MGP tenure, including a minister.
The teacher-turned-politician is however more known for his contribution in the co-operative field, especially the Quepem Urban Credit Co-operative Society and Adarsh Co-operative Society.
Now BJP should apply FEVICOL to his bottoms to retain him.