Panaji: Acknowledging that some elected representatives lacked ethics and principles, state Congress president Girish Chodankar said that it was the responsibility of all political parties to select honest and credible candidates who will not succumb to pressure or money power.Speaking just a day after BJP engineered the merger of alliance partner Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) with the saffron party, Chodankar said that the development marked a “dangerous” trend for the state.“I think we need people with high morality and ethics to contest elections which is lacking today,” he said. “It is also the responsibility of political parties to pick the right candidate.”The merger of the MGP legislature wing with BJP and the immediate swearing in of former MGP MLA for Savordem Deepak Pauskar comes just over a week after the new state government was sworn in with Pramod Sawant at the helm. In 2017, after Congress emerged as the single largest party, BJP formed a post-poll alliance with Goa Forward Party (GFP) and MGP and convinced health minister Vishwajit Rane to quit Congress and join them. Later in October 2018, former Congress MLAs Dayanand Sopte and Subhash Shirodkar quit Congress to join BJP.“BJP is directly in conflict with the people of Goa since 2017. This is a kind of confrontation that Goa has not seen. There is no morality, no principles, no ethics,” Chodankar said.The BJP should not focus on winning the coming elections, said Chodankar, but instead should use all the money it has to “buy the people’s mandate” as it has done so far.“BJP entered the state assembly by sitting on the lion but today they have finished them. They have taken their leaders, they have taken their voters and they have taken their mandate,” Chodankar said.Despite the recent political developments Chodankar ruled out any discussion with GFP and MGP.

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