Panaji, Oct 26 (IANS): Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday said that his party will welcome support of any regional party as they want to win the upcoming general elections in 2024.

Sawant, while addressing a press conference along with union minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar, he expressed confidence of winning both seats of Lok Sabha in Goa.

“Only 160 days are left for the Lok Sabha election. We have started preparing for the elections. We have also discussed in detail how we will win both the seats in Goa,” Sawant said.

He said that union minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar has given the party leaders a suggestion to win the elections.

“Around 99 per cent families of the state have benefited from the schemes of the central government implemented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said, appealing to people to support BJP.

“We also welcome the regional parties to support us to win the upcoming Lok Sabha,” Sawant replied to a question.

In the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly, the BJP has 33 seats (including support of five MLAs), while seven are from the opposition.

The BJP has 28 MLAs and support of two MLAs of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and three Independents.

While the Congress has three MLAs, AAP has two and Goa Forward Party and Revolutionary Goans Party (RGP) have one each.

In the last term of the BJP government, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had dropped Goa Forward MLA Vijai Sardesai and his other two MLAs (in July 2019) from the cabinet to accommodate Congress defectors.

Then Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai, Vinod Palienkar, Jayesh Salgaocar (Goa Forward Party MLAs) were dropped from the Cabinet. Later, GFP had a pre-poll alliance with Congress in the 2022 assembly election.

Prior to that Pramod Sawant had also dropped MGP leader and then Deputy CM Sudin Dhavalikar from the Cabinet hours after then MGP MLAs Dipak Pauskar and Manohar Ajgaonkar broke away from the MGP and merged its legislative wing with the BJP.

This forced the senior politician Sudin Dhavalikar to support Congress in 2019 Lok Sabha election, which helped grand old party’s candidate Francisco Sardinha to win from South Goa by defeating BJP’s then sitting Member of parliament Narendra Sawaikar. However, BJP could retain its North Goa seat, from where union minister Shripad Naik was elected.

After the results of 2022 assembly elections, BJP despite having a majority MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar was accommodated in Pramod Sawant’s cabinet.