PANAJI
There is hardly any need to be a poll pundit or an expert political analyst to surmise that for both of Goa's seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls the battle in the main will be confined to the two national players -- the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition Congress -- even if the Revolutionary Goans Party, the new kid on the block was off the election campaign blocks more than a month ago.
Clichéd and boring for a general election which is otherwise an inherently very exciting exercise in democracy. Yet this BJP v/s Congress battle for supremacy in both North and South Goa seats will have several of its own facets of interest.
Like in North Goa for starters, whether or not the incumbent, Shripad Naik, who is already renominated by the BJP to re-contest the May 7 election, will manage to defy the law of averages and the reported voter fatigue, to make it six in a row. If he does, he would be etching his name in Goa's political history as a Parliamentarian with the longest, uninterrupted innings in the Lok Sabha. Currently he shares the record with former union minister Eduardo Faleiro, who also had won five consecutive parliamentary elections from South Goa between 1977 and 1996.
But will he? Ask him and pat comes the answer from the veteran of five Lok Sabha electoral battles: "I will win by a bigger margin than last time."
Nonetheless, it would be too early to embark on an independent soothsaying mission about the outcome of the electoral battle in North Goa with the field still open and Naik's opponent, other than the RGP president Manoj Parab, yet to be finalised and revealed by the Congress.
BJP favourite
Even though the actual battle has to be fought and won, the BJP and Naik clearly start as favourites to win the North Goa seat for a number of reasons: a battle ready party machinery and resources, its own government ruling the State, MLAs' support in 19 of the 20 Assembly segments and past history of electoral verdicts.
Naik first captured the North Goa seat for the BJP in the 1999 election, months after he got defeated in the assembly elections from Marcaim. He has never lost since then, winning each time with handsome margins save for the 2009 election in the Congress-led UPA era when the late Jitendra Deshprabhu of the NCP came just 4,000-odd votes from the finish line.
Moreover, even in its dominant years at the Centre and in later years in Goa as well, the Congress has never really had a grip on the North Goa seat having been able to win it just four times in fourteen elections -- Purushotam Kakodkar (1967), Shantaram Naik (1984), Harish Zantye (1991) and Ravi Naik (1998).
Bardez, Tiswadi could be a leveller
The two big talukas on either side of the Mandovi river -- Bardez and Tiswadi -- together account for 12 of the 20 assembly segments and voting patterns here could decide how tough or easy the battle for Naik and BJP will be on May 7.
For, it is in these two talukas that the Congress still has a significant support base, evident from the fact that in the 2022 assembly elections five of the 11 seats the party had won, were from here.
It's another matter that four of these winning Congress MLAs have since defected to the saffron side but it is unlikely that their desertion will sway the electoral support to the other side in these two talukas.
Whoever the Congress chooses as its candidate, if it does happen to be former Union Minister Ramakant Khalap, his performance in Bardez and Tiswadi will be crucial to decide whether he has a chance to turn the tables on Naik to make a comeback to mainstream politics after more than two decades on the sidelines.
