MAPUSA
The man who made headlines in Mapusa by selling coconuts at just Rs 2 apiece during Ganesh Chaturthi is back in the public eye, but this time with political ambitions.
Businessman and social worker Yogesh Kelkar, a Mapusa resident, has announced his intention to contest the forthcoming Assembly elections from Mapusa.
Known for drawing long queues during his annual coconut sale, Kelkar has now turned his attention to a wider public outreach, distributing bags of food items free of cost to families during Diwali.
Kelkar claims that around 6,000 families in Mapusa received the bags as part of the festival initiative.
While the distribution has brought him back into public focus, his stated electoral ambitions suggest that his outreach may also have a political dimension.
Though he has not disclosed which political platform he intends to contest from, Kelkar has indicated that he would be open to fighting the election on the symbol of a “good” opposition party. He has, however, kept his options open and is yet to reveal his political strategy.
Kelkar is not entirely new to electoral politics. He joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and worked for the party's candidate during the Mapusa Assembly election in 2017.
His possible entry adds another name to the growing list of political aspirants eyeing the Mapusa constituency, where the contest for political space is already taking shape ahead of the next Assembly elections.
Whether Kelkar's public outreach and grassroots initiatives will translate into electoral support remains to be seen.
For now, the Rs 2 coconut seller appears keen to move beyond his familiar annual appearance and test his popularity in the political arena.
