Ending a month long suspense, Director of Municipal Administration, Grade I officer Elvis Gomes has finally put in his papers from government service, but the moot question, however, still remains – whether this Grade I bureaucrat will finally take the electoral plunge and take on the established political players in his native Cuncolim constituency where a PWD contractor, a mining contractor, a bus operator and a lawyer have all positioned themselves to throw their hats in the 2017 Assembly election.
#Will he join Aam Aadmi Party?
#Will he contest from Cuncolim in next poll?
#Or will the Goa Housing Board case play
spoilsport to his post-retirement plans?
GUILHERME ALMEIDA
MARGAO
That Elvis has set in motion the process to quit government service became clear three days ago when he put in his papers for voluntary retirement. In the normal course, the retirement process is expected to be complete within three months, but with the Anti-Corruption Bureau lodging an FIR in the Housing Board case, it remains to be seen whether the government would permit Elvis to make an honourable exit or tie him down by raising the ghost of disciplinary proceedings.
While a legal battle appears inevitable in the event the government throws a spanner in his voluntary retirement plans, the big question that remains unanswered is whether the bureaucrat would take on the likes of BJP’s sitting MLA Rajan Naik, who happens a bus operator, former two-time MLA Joaquim Alemao, a mining contractor, class PWD contractor Clafacio Dias, and Adv John Monteiro.
Speculation is rife that Elvis will embrace the Aam Aadmi Party after his resignation is accepted by the government, but, he has a task cut out if he nurses any hopes of charting out a political career after his long stint in the administration. For, all the probable candidates, including former two-time MLA Joaquim Alemao and his bete noire Clafacio Dias have already kicked off their election campaign in Cuncolim.
In fact, Cuncolim is the lone constituency in Salcete where electioneering has already commenced in right earnest, with the Joaquim and Clafacio camps out on the field in the game of one-upmanship. Sitting BJP legislator Rajan Naik and Adv John Monteiro, have not lagged behind either. Both Rajan and Adv Monteiro, who had played spoil sport to Joaquim Alemao in 2012, have kicked off their campaign ahead of the 2017 battle.
It’s against this backdrop that Elvis and his band of supporters have a task cut out if he intends to straight away join the battle with the 2017 poll only a couple of months away. His plan to make an electoral debut on the AAP banner may not be a bad proposition, especially when Cuncolim has a history of flowing against the electoral tide, but Aam Aadmi Party has still a long way to go in the constituency.
Sources revealed that Elvis had tried to carve out a space for him in Cuncolim when he presided over the affairs of the Cuncolim Union, not only taking up social-cultural-sports activities, but initiating a project or two under the Goa State Urban Development Agency in the town. Whether this, coupled with his long stint in the administration, will be suffice to keep Elvis in good stead is a subject for debate in a constituency where seasoned campaigners have taken an early plunge ahead of the Assembly election.
