THE SHOW OF STRENGTH
Top BJP leaders with Dy CM Chandrakant Kavlekar at the Satyanaran Pooja at his residence on Friday.
Congress leaders led by P Chidambaram seen coming out of the Shree Shantadurga Kunkalikarin temple on Sunday. Pics: Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO: Battlefield Quepem “ the constituency represented by none other than Cong-turned-BJP MLA and Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant aka Babu Kavlekar since 2002.
Call it a sheer coincidence or otherwise, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress literally displayed a show of strength in Quepem ahead of the 2022 Assembly polls, which political observers say may turn out to be Battle Royale this time round.
Consider this. The Saffron brigade led by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, his cabinet colleagues, MLAs, party Chief Sadanand Tanavade and Organising secretary Satish Dhond had all converged at Kavlekar’s residence on Friday for the Satyaranarayan Pooja as a show of solidarity with the Congress turncoat ahead of 2022 Assembly elections.
The Congress did not lag behind. Senior Congress election observer P Chidambaram, AICC Goa desk in-charge, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Opposition leader Digambar Kamat, GPCC Chief Girish Chodankar, MP Francisco Sardinha, working president Alexio Sequeira and a galaxy of state party leaders descended on the temple town of Fatorpa on Sunday with a mission “ to dislodge Kavlekar from Quepem.
While the BJP leaders participated in the Satyanarayan Pooja offered by Kavlekar coinciding with Ganesh Chathurti, the Congress leaders sought the blessings of Shree Shantadurga Kunkalinkarin at the Fatorpa temple before going about the meeting on Sunday.
That the Congress has taken the ensuing battle seriously in the Deputy Chief Minister’s Quepem constituency is evident by the fact that that this is the second meeting in the constituency to be addressed by top party leaders. The first such meeting was addressed by Dinesh Gundu Rao at Balli village last month.
Quepem has been Deputy Chief Minister Kavlekar’s bastion since he first got elected from the constituency around two decades ago in 2002 under the Congress banner. Since then, there’s been no looking back for the low-profile Kavlekar as he maintained his winning streak, successfully winning the Assembly elections that followed, keeping the saffron brigade at bay.
With the constituency playing host to a sizable Scheduled Tribe electorate, Kavlekar had held the seat with the winning combination, comprising of the STs and the minorities.
Post-2019 after Kavlekar along with nine other Congress MLAs quit the party to embrace the saffron party to assume the post of Deputy Chief Minister, questions are being raised whether the four-time Quepem MLA will manage to retain his seat on the Lotus symbol.
Even as this question has triggered a debate of sorts in Quepem political circles, the Congress seemed to have drawn up a plan to storm Kavlekar’s fort in the coming polls. The party has an axe to grind against Kavlekar, as he was the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, when he led the 10-party MLAs to embrace the BJP.
The Congress game plan appears simple, tap the negative sentiments amongst the tribals and consolidate the party core vote base to keep the party in good stead in 2022. That explains why the Congress leaders are repeatedly descending on Quepem, with the hope of making the party’s presence felt in the constituency.
