Keith Vaz ruffles political feathers
Can a British Member of Parliament campaign in an election outside his country? High profile Labour MP Keith Vaz’s press secretary didn’t have a quick answer to the question many politicians in Goa were asking on Monday, a day after Vaz addressed a Congress election meeting in Varca, South Goa.
The British MP who has Goan roots was the star speaker on Sunday night at Valanka Alemao’s election campaign. Valanka, the Congress nominee for the Benaulim seat, is the daughter of Congress Minister Churchill Alemao who is known to be close friends with Vaz.
The Leicester East MP had hosted a lunch for Alemao in the House of Commons some years ago.
Asked if Keith Vaz had crossed the line, BJP leader Manohar Parrikar said he saw nothing wrong in him attending a meeting or expressing his views. “But if a foreign MP openly canvasses for votes, it would be a breach of protocol,” he told Deccan Herald.
But many BJP supporters and local businessmen who were clearly put off by Vaz’s political action snubbed the Labour MP leaving him with a diminished audience at the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on Monday where he delivered an address on UK–India business ties.
“If we knew he was coming here to campaign we would have not invited him to speak today,” a senior committee member of the chamber said.
