the goan I network
PANAJI
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finally on Sunday took the decision and announced Siddharth Kuncalienkar, close aide of the late chief minister Manohar Parrikar rather than the latter’s son Utpal Parrikar as its candidate for the May 19 Panjim bypoll, surprising many.
BJP’s Central Election Committee secretary, J P Nadda, issued the statement from Delhi stating that Kuncalienkar’s nomination was approved by the committee which has in it most top national leaders of the party including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, national president Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, MORTH Minister Nitin Gadkari among others.
The decision to name Kuncalienkar as its candidate has come virtually at the eleventh hour as time to file nominations for the May 19 bypoll ends on Monday evening. Candidates of all other contesting political parties including the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM) had either filed their nominations or were made public well in advance.
Although Utpal Parrikar was along considered the front-runner for the BJP ticket in a bid to cash-in on the ‘sympathy’ factor following his father’s death in March, the leadership favoured Kuncalienkar owing to the latter’s experience on Panjim’s electoral landscape.
The latter has won the seat twice, first at the bypoll after the late Parrikar vacated it when he shifted to Delhi to take over as the country’s Defence Minister and then again in 2017 before he himself vacated it for the late leader when he came back to take over as chief minister. Kuncalienkar also has steered the campaigns at elections of the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) which is considered a political barometer in the capital, even though the CCP polls are not fought on party lines.
A senior BJP functionary also said that with the battle in Panjim appearing to be a
difficult one, the leadership veered to the view that a battle-experienced Kuncalienkar would be a better bet than a novice Utpal.
Meanwhile, the battle for Panjim which for the first time since 1994 will take place in the absence of the otherwise omnipresent persona of late Manohar Parrikar, will be a keenly fought one and a virtual encore of the 2017 Assembly election.
Challenging Kuncalienkar and the BJP’s hegemony on the capital city (Parrikar had won it six times and Kuncalienkar twice since 1994) again will be the former minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate, this time on the Congress ticket.
Like in 2017, AAP’s Valmiki Naik is also contesting again and so is the GSM who have decided to field its mentor and former Goa RSS chief Subhash Velingkar. Both Naik and Velingkar have the potential to significantly impact the dynamics of the electoral battle in which Kuncalienkar and Monserrate many say are the front runners.
The bets may have been placed on Kuncalienkar in this prestigious electoral battle. But rather than the controversial off-shore casinos that lord over the river and governance of the city, the ruling BJP’s fortunes will hinge on the whim of Panjim’s 22,482-strong electorate.
