As poll alliances shift, BJP struggles to protect its turf

PANAJI: As in South Goa, in North Goa, too, six candidates, including a woman, will battle it out for the parliamentary seat. Congress has fielded its state president Girish Chodankar to take on Union Ayush minister Shripad Naik, who is seeking re-election for the fifth consecutive term.

The others in the fray are AAP’s Dattatraya Padgaonkar, Republican Party of India’s Amit Korgaonkar and two independent candidates, Bhagwant Kamat and Aishwarya Salgaonkar.

Indications are that, so far at least, unlike the 2014 polls, there is no wave that could engulf the constituency in favour of any party or individual. In the last parliamentary elections, Congress candidate and former chief minister Ravi Naik was outclassed by Shripad as the Modi wave had swept North Goa also. The Union minister had won by over one lakh votes, a record so far. One more advantage for BJP was that, besides its organisational set up, 21 of its MLAs had won the 2012 assembly elections, most of whom were from North Goa.

On the ground, chief minister Pramod Sawant is seen shuttling between the North and South Goa constituencies. He is also seen campaigning in the three assembly segments — Mandrem,

Mapusa

and Shiroda — that are going to the bypolls on the same day. “It will be crucial for the chief minister to win all five seats,” a political observer said.

Though the state has a BJP-led government, the 2017 assembly polls saw the party’s strength in the House reduce drastically. However, with health minister Vishwajit Rane joining BJP two years ago and the recent “merger” of two MGP MLAs, its strength is 14, the same as that of Congress, and the party is looking to increase its tally in the April 23 bypolls.

Chief minister Pramod Sawant’s predecessor, Manohar Parrikar, who presided over every election campaign right from the planning stage, since 1994, will be missed on the ground as he had the capacity and charisma to win over people and instantly resolve issues raised by the electorate or certain groups of grassroots-level functionaries, the political observer said.

The demand for resumption of mining is one of the major damaging factors in the hinterland, which impact BJP is trying hard to reduce.

Shripad had a lead in all the assembly segments in 2014 except for one,

Calangute

, where Ravi managed just over 100 extra votes than his rival. It was a close fight between Shripad and NCP’s Jitendra Deshprabhu in 2009 and the former won by just over 6,000 votes.

BJP is confident that it won’t be a repeat of 2009 and that Shripad will retain the seat with a huge margin. On the other hand, Congress for a change, seems to be gaining ground in many assembly pockets, including where they don’t have an MLA representing them in the assembly.

As of now, indications are that BJP is facing a tough challenge from Chodankar and it is unlikely that BJP will repeat the 2014 victory margin for Shripad.