Not yet thought about contesting Panaji bypoll: Parrikar’s son

Utpal Parrikar, elder son of late Goa chief minister and BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, on Friday said he has not yet thought about contesting the Panaji by-poll and would take a call on it at the “right time.”

The Panaji Assembly seat fell vacant following the death of Manohar Parrikar on March 17. A section of BJP workers in Panaji has been pressing for Utpal’s candidature there. “At present I have not thought about it. But I will have to think at the right time,” he said.

When asked if the BJP has approached him with the offer to contest the Panaji by-election, Utpal said that since it was still a period of mourning for him, no such discussion has happened so far. “I am still struggling with the grief of my father’s death, that is why I have not yet decided anything,” he said.

Earlier this month, the BJP Goa unit president Vinay Tendulkar had claimed that the party’s national vice president Avinash Rai Khanna had approached Utpal and his brother, Abhijat, urging them to take part in BJP’s activities.