Parsekar's unflinching loyalty rewarded

Laxmikant Parsekar, who had rebelled against his family of die-hard MGP supporters to contest his first Assembly election on a BJP ticket in 1988, has reaped the reward for his loyalty to the party with his election as the new Chief Minister of Goa.

The 58-year-old leader, with strong RSS connections, is the 22nd Chief Minister of the politically volatile state and 12th person to hold the post.

Branded a ‘rebel’, Parsekar started his political journey in the 1980s, treading a path that his family strongly disapproved of when he had his first tryst with the hustings in 1988 from Mandrem constituency as a BJP candidate. His farming family was a staunch supporter of then politically powerful regional outfit—Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party. He was pitted against Ramakant Khalap, an influential politician in the state polity, and lost.

Parsekar’s decision to contest as a candidate of the BJP, then a virtual non-entity in the coastal state, was received with shock by his family and the village, an MGP stronghold. “My family refused to digest the fact that I am contesting against Khalap. It was in the year 1988 when BJP was hardly known in the state,” he said.