The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday named lawyer and activist Amit Palekar as its chief ministerial candidate in Goa.

Palekar, 46, came into the limelight last year after going on a successful hunger strike to demand the demolition of a new structure at a heritage zone in Old Goa. He will contest from Santa Cruz.

Palekar touched party leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s feet after his name was announced.

“I will get back the Goa that has lost its identity in the last 20 years. That is my promise to you,” Palekar said.

AAP had ignored secular propriety by declaring in advance that it would have a Sikh chief minister nominee in Punjab and one from the Bhandari backward caste in Goa.

“We are not doing caste politics,” said Kejriwal at a news conference in Dona Paula. “We are ending the caste politics of these political parties by giving a chance to the most under-represented community. Goa has the largest population of people from the Bhandari community, yet only once in the last 60 years has someone from this society been the chief minister and that too for merely two and a half years.”

Bhandaris are estimated to form a third of Goa’s population. The party had earlier announced that it would have a Catholic deputy chief minister, for which former Congress leader Pratima Coutinho is a frontrunner.

In the 2017 polls, AAP had projected former bureaucrat Elvis Gomes as its chief ministerial face, but drew a blank in the polls. Gomes now heads the state unit of the All India Professionals Congress.

On Tuesday, AAP announced MP Bhagwant Mann as its chief ministerial candidate in Punjab. With the announcement in Goa, it has stolen a march over its main rivals in both the states where it stands a chance.

Goa, with a small area and electorate, offers parties an affordable chance at gaining the requisite vote share to help them qualify for a national party status.

The Trinamul Congress is also extensively campaigning in the state.