Delhi Chief Minister & Aam Aadmi Party's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday announced that Amit Palekar will be the party's chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Goa Assembly polls. Arvind Kejriwal also announced that the Aam Aadmi Party will be contesting all the 40 Assembly seats in Goa. Announcing the AAP's CM for Goa, Kejriwal highlighted that Amit Palekar is an advocate by profession and comes from the Bhandari community.
It is pertinent to mention here that Palekar's name was among the front-runners to be the CM candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party. As per reports, Palekar's recent hunger strike has raised a lot of eyebrows, tipping the scales in his favour. Palekar had staged an indefinite hunger strike to save old Goa's heritage site where an illegal construction was being built. As his health deteriorated, Kejriwal had praised his courage saying, "Seeing Palekar's indefinite hunger strike and the kind of support he has been receiving from Goans, finally the government was forced to cave in".
Who is Amit Palekar?
Amit Palekar is a lawyer by profession and remains very active in social work. Palekar's mother has been a sarpanch. Palekar has been active in the Santa Cruz area for a long time. Politics is not new to them. Although he was not in politics, his mother had been sarpanch for ten years. Amit Palekar helped people during the second COVID wave. He donated 135 beds to a local hospital from his side. Apart from providing treatment to the patients, he also helped the families traveling in lockdown. In the last elections, he did a door-to-door campaign for the Aam Aadmi Party.