All eyes and ears will be set on Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is scheduled to address a political meeting in South Goa district, to kickstart the Bharatiya Janata Party's election campaign ahead of the 2024 polls.
Both the opposition as well as the ruling BJP in Goa have traded continuous barbs over Shah's controversial comments made at a political rally in Karnataka's Belgavi district in January this year, in which the former national president of the BJP had said that his party's governments at the Centre and in both states had managed to find a resolution to the Mahadayi dispute.
Shah's comment, which came soon after the Central Water Commission's nod to Karnataka's Kalsa-Banduri water diversion project, had triggered a political outcry in Goa, with even Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and two of his cabinet ministers insisting that the Goa government was not party to the resolution, even as the opposition bayed for the government's blood accusing the latter of compromising Goa's interests in the dispute for political capital.
According to Goa's Water Resources Minister Subhash Shirodkar the state BJP and the government will raise the Mahadayi issue during Shah's visit on Sunday.
"We have raised the issue with the Union Home Minister in the past and we will do it again when he visits Goa now," Shirodkar told reporters.
Goa Congress spokesperson Amarnath Panjikar however has challenged the state BJP leaders to take up Goa's cause in the Mahadayi dispute, when the central leader visits the state on Sunday.
"Pramod Sawant and other leaders of BJP have now got a good opportunity to clarify this issue, when Amit Shah will speak in a public meeting in Goa on April 16. Forget about speaking in front of the media in Karnataka, let the BJP leaders make a statement in Goa, that too in front of Amit Shah that whatever their central leader said was wrong. Show your guts in Goa itself," Panjikar said.
"Goa is eager to see your guts on the day when Amit Shah will address a public meeting in Goa, and also when the BJP leaders of Goa will campaign in Karnataka. If they fail to do so, then the people of the state will call them 'Masters of U-Turn'," he added.
According to state BJP officials nearly 25,000 guests were expected to attend Shah's political rally, which according to state BJP president Sadanand Shet Tanavade is expected to set the ball rolling for the saffron's party's 2024 general election campaign.