Shripad Naik & Girish Chodankar: United by sports, divided by politics

PANAJI: In September 2018, when

elections

to the Goa Olympic Association (GOA) were announced and panels were formed, two unlikely rivals joined hands together to fight the

polls

. BJP leader and Union minister Shripad Naik and Congress state unit president Girish Chodankar were a team, as they defeated their rivals to take control of GOA.


Today, both are fiercely competing for the North Goa Lok Sabha seat—Naik a four-term MP trying to win a fifth consecutive time, while Chodankar trying to wrest it from him and enter the Lower House for the first time.

For the association elections, Naik had floated his own panel and coopted Chodankar as one of his vice-presidents.

They shared the dais, campaigned together and ensured that their panel got elected. While Naik got elected unopposed, Chodankar picked up more votes than any other contestant for the post.

“At GOA, we never discuss

politics

. We are together in GOA, but our political ideologies have always been different. It’s good that he is my rival here. Better to have a known rival than an unknown one,” says Naik.

At GOA’s meetings, insiders say, it is business as usual with politics not playing any role in the decision-making process.

“We set aside politics when the panel was being chosen. We wanted people who could work for the betterment of

sports

in Goa. There was no politics. I can vouch that the president (Naik) did not object to anyone’s inclusion,” says Gurudutta Bhakta, GOA’s long-standing secretary and the man who got both of them together.

Naik has been heading the Goa Rifle Shooting Association since 2008, while as president of the Goa Kho Kho Association, Chodankar is their representative in GOA.

Naik’s panel had tried hard to get elected unopposed but could not convince everyone to step aside. One such member who insisted on contesting was Welvin Menezes, president of the St Andre Congress block committee.

Menezes had sought Chondankar’s support at the elections, but that was not enough. With Congress and BJP joining hands at GOA elections, nobody else stood a chance.

“I am involved with GOA for a very long time. We were together (as president and vice-president) during the last term too. We should not mix politics and sports. Here, we are fighting a political battle,” says Chodankar.

On May 23, when ballot boxes are opened and votes counted, GOA can rest assured that they will have a winner.