Panaji: With fissures emerging within the opposition parties, environmentalists and civic activists have laid out six demands for the opposition parties. Reiterating that a divided opposition gives the current BJP-led govt an advantage, the activists working together under the Priority Goa group said that the six demands will act as “boundary lines” for the opposition parties.Activists who have been at the helm of the demand to scrap Section 39A and the Kala Academy repair protests said that the opposition needs to set all the differences aside. The activists have volunteered to coordinate between the four political parties and if required even initiate the alliance talks.“Elections are nearly upon us and if our politicians behave the way they want, then what happened in the last two elections will happen again. The opposition thinks that just because people are fed up of BJP they will vote for the opposition. The opposition needs to show some maturity, some honesty and some integrity,” said Swapnesh Sherlekar.“The first thing that most voters want is a united alliance to keep BJP govt out. Almost 67% of voters don’t want BJP. These 67% votes should not be split. Our hope is that the party which considers itself as the big brother should not tell stories about the alliance happening tomorrow or next week. The smaller parties need to be taken along,” said Anthony D’Silva, one of the members of Priority Goa.Another demand from the voters is that 20 MLAs who jumped from various parties to BJP should not be given tickets to contest the coming elections. “If the four opposition parties take any of these defecting candidates, we will not tolerate them. Candidates who have criminal background, who are not clean and who can be blackmailed should not be given tickets,” said theatre artist Rajdeep Naik.The group has said that the opposition parties should conclude seat sharing discussions by Sep 15.
