PANAJI
Two of the eight MLAs who defected from the Congress to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) soon after the 2022 Goa assembly elections represent segments in the central Tiswadi taluka of the North Goa Lok Sabha constituency.
However, the two ” Rudolf Fernandes (St Cruz) and Rajesh Faldessai (Cumbharjua) ” did not add much to the BJP’s kitty and the record sixth consecutive North Goa win of Shripad Naik.
In fact, in the St Cruz segment, Naik trailed behind Congress’s Ramakant Khalap by 2,216 votes, almost equivalent to the deficit he had in this segment in 2019 against Girish Chodankar when the then MLA, Antonio Fernandes, was still with the Congress.
To Rudolf’s and the BJP’s disadvantage, St Cruz is traditionally a Congress bastion, never lost by the grand old party since 1980, except twice when it was won by Independents ” Francisco (Bashic) Branco in 1984 and ironically Rudolf’s own mother Victoria (Mummy) Fernandes in 1994 before she eventually joined the Congress to win it thrice.
Whatever the reasons or odds stacked against him and the BJP in St Cruz, the fact of the matter, however, is that the 2,000-plus vote deficit in the segment will go down in the saffron party’s record books and be flagged when Fernandes’ report card is perused at the time of the next assembly hustings due in the normal course in 2027.
In Faldessai’s Cumbharjua, which in fact is Naik’s home constituency and where his son is the Zilla Panchayat representative and also heads the North Goa ZP, his lead over Khalap was just 1,323. Back in 2019, he had led over Chodankar by nearly 2,000 votes in the segment.
Sources in the BJP organisational wing in Cumbharjua blame the poor show in this election on the internal friction between the Faldessai camp and Siddesh, who is eyeing the seat at the next assembly elections. In fact, he had made a concerted bid for the party nomination in 2022 but eventually the High Command decided to give it to the wife of the then ailing MLA, Pandurang Madkaikar.
The advantage of these internal bickerings in the saffron camp was aptly garnered by Khalap, whose staunch loyalist and former MLA of the constituency, Dharma Chodankar, did the groundwork to make up for the Congress’ lack of organisational strength in the segment.
The numbers for Naik and BJP in Cumbharjua, unlike in St Cruz, may not have been in the red this election, but the negligible quantum of it will indeed be flashed when it comes to deciding Faldessai’s fate in 2027, where the latter is seemingly headed for a challenge from Naik’s son, Siddesh.
