The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday relieved Amit Palekar from the post of president of Goa state unit with immediate effect.
In a statement Wednesday, the party said: “The Political Affairs Committee of the Aam Aadmi Party has decided to relieve Advocate Amit Palekar from the post of president of the Goa state unit with immediate effect”. It added that Goa state general secretary (organisation) Shrikrishna Parab will hold additional charge as president of the AAP Goa state unit until further orders.
Palekar did not respond to requests for a comment.
The announcement comes days after the party’s dismal performance in the recently concluded zilla panchayat polls in the coastal state. The AAP, who decided to contest solo and opted against an alliance with the Congress and other Opposition parties, won a single seat in Colva by a slender margin.
The ruling alliance of BJP and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) won 32 of the 50 seats in the zilla panchayat polls. The Congress won 10 seats, while its alliance partner Goa Forward Party (GFP) bagged one. The Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) won two seats and four independents also got elected.
After the poll results Monday, Palekar had told a regional news channel that an alliance with the like-minded Opposition parties was imperative to defeat the BJP.
“I know it could be something that the party may not like, but the party needs to understand Goa’s genetics,” Palekar said. “They have tried to give an alternate politics, but somewhere, that model has failed. I am going to give my suggestions to the party [leadership]. It is for the party to decide thereafter…what is the way ahead.”
On whether those suggestions will include an alliance with the Opposition parties in the future, Palekar said: “There is no other way out…than a joint Opposition alliance. It could be with like-minded parties or whoever wants to come together, but it has to be done in the next three months…To defeat [BJP], you have to come together”.
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Palekar, a lawyer and a social activist, took a plunge into active politics in October 2021, when he joined the AAP, ending more than two decade-long association with the BJP that began during his college days. His mother was the former sarpanch of Merces village panchayat in North Goa and a state executive committee member of the BJP for more than 25 years. His father was a school teacher and the former deputy sarpanch of Merces village panchayat.
Soon after joining the AAP, he was declared the party’s chief ministerial face for the Assembly polls in 2022 and contested elections for the first time from the St. Cruz constituency in North Goa, but ended up losing to the BJP candidate.
Palekar belongs to Bhandari Samaj, a numerically strong community among Goa’s Other Backward Classes (OBCs). When he was declared as the chief ministerial candidate in 2022, critics had accused the AAP of playing caste politics by choosing a candidate from the Bhandari community. More than three months after the Assembly elections in 2022, Palekar was elevated to the post of party president in the state.
