Goa Election Results: Amit Palekar is Aam Aadmi Party's chief ministerial candidate in Goa.
Amit Palekar, the Aam Aadmi Party's chief ministerial candidate in Goa, has lost the elections to Rodolfo Louis Fernandes of the Congress. He finished third with 4,049 votes in the St Cruz Assembly constituency in North Goa District.
Here are 5 things about him:
1) Mr Palekar is a first-time candidate, having joined the AAP in October 2021. In January 2022, the AAP announced him as its chief minister face.
2) A lawyer and social activist, Mr Palekar made headlines in 2021 for his efforts to distribute oxygen cylinders to needy patients during the second wave of COVID-19.
3) Mr Palekar rose to prominence during the Old Goa Heritage Complex controversy in November 2021, when he went on an indefinite hunger strike to protest illegal construction at the heritage site.
4) He is a member of the Bhandari community, which has a sizeable population in Goa. For 10 years, his mother, Jyoti Palekar, had served as sarpanch of the Merces village panchayat near Panaji.
5) The AAP leader attempted to expose a rumoured job recruiting scam at the state-run Goa Medical College (GMC) in Bambolim in the past. Mr Palekar had said that many job openings at the GMC were filled with incompetent candidates, either through favouritism or bribery.