PANAJI: Even as BJP revelled in its late-night triumph over MGP, two of the saffron party’s founding members on Wednesday made no bones about their displeasure over being kept in the dark yet again.A miffed former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar said there no longer appeared to be need for a cadre or party organisation. “Any elected members will do for us. At least this is the scene in Goa,” he said.Rajendra Arlekar, who was speaker in the BJP-led state government till his defeat to present tourism minister Manohar Azgaonkar in 2017, warned that the trend of wooing legislators from other parties did not bode well for BJP or the state. “Why should the party be built? Why should booths be formed? I fail to understand the need for this,” he said.Despite Arlekar and Parsekar being part of the state BJP’s core committee, both claimed to have been unaware about the party’s recent expansion plan. They said it was a repeat of October 2018, when former Congressmen Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte were inducted into BJP without its core committee members being consulted.As Azgaonkar belongs to the same constituency as Arlekar, the latter’s chances of getting a party ticket have further diminished, sources said. Arlekar, however, said he was not concerned about hisfuture and maintained that he was “out of electoral politics”.Until a few days ago, Parsekar, who is in a similar situation, had aggressively told the party how injustice was meted out to him with Sopte’s induction in October. The move had dashed his electoral aspirations, he had claimed.The senior BJP functionaries have now demanded that the antecedents of BJP’s new members be verified. “This must be the seventh or eighth time Azgaonkar has jumped parties,” he said. During the course of this 20-year stint as MLA, the tourism minister has been a member of Congress, BJP, and MGP. This is the second time he has returned to BJP. Sanvordem MLA Deepak Pauskar, on the other hand, is a first-time legislator.“If such decisions were to be taken, there ought to have been discussions. Our cadre is pained. They are questioning us,” Arlekar said, “We know how a few of us, including Ayush minister Shripad Naik , former CMs Parrikar and Parsekar, and organisational secretary Satish Dhond nurtured the party from the grassroots.”Arlekar said he would approach party functionaries in a day or two for an explanation.

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