PANAJI:
The intense battle for control of the Gomantak Bhandari Samaj in the elections to its 15-member central committee held on Sunday is turning out to be a photo-finish.
Counting of the 2684 votes cast is expected to go on till the wee hours of Monday at the Menezes Braganza Hall in Panaji where the process is being conducted.
Two panels, one headed by the outgoing president and BJP vice-president Anil Hoble and another led by Ashok Naik of Ponda have locked horns in the elections.
Ashok Naik is said to be backed by one of the community's heavyweights and former chief minister Ravi Naik of the Congress.
Elections were held for the post of president for which both Anil Hoble and Ashok Naik are contesting besides other positions in the 15-member central committee.
The samaj has a 3800-strong electoral college and is ruled by a central committee with 15 members.
Besides the president, the members of the electoral college also voted for a vice president, general secretary, secretary and joint secretary and 10 executive members on the same ballot paper which is the reason why the counting process was taking long, sources said.
The Bhandari Samaj, which is notified in the state list of Other Backward Classes (OBC) is a politically significant community given its numerical strength.
It comprises over 26 percent of the population and a significantly large proportion of MLAs in the 40-member Goa legislative assembly have historically hailed from this community.
Ravi Naik is the only member of the community who has risen to be the chief minister of the State in the early 1990s although in more recent years Union Ayush Minister Shripad Naik has been hogging the political limelight in the community.
In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the Congress had pitted Ravi Naik for the North Goa constituency in a gamble to unseat Shripad, but it did not pay off.
