PANAJI
Shripad Naik who won his sixth term as North Goa MP made it to the Cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi again and took oath of office on Sunday evening.
Naik won the North Goa seat for a record sixth consecutive time defeating the Congress's Ramakant Khalap, by over one lakh votes.
Naik was also minister of State in both of Modi's previous terms. In fact, he has been a minister whenever the BJP had governments in Delhi ever since he was first inducted in 2000 in his first term as MP.
Only for a few months he remained out of the Central government in 2002 when he resigned to contest the Goa assembly election from Ponda against current Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik.
Ravi Naik, who was Deputy Chief Minister in the Parrikar Cabinet in 2002, had ditched the saffron party in the run-up to the assembly election and the party chose Shripad to take him on. He did not succeed and then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, inducted him back as minister of State a few months later.
Naik is also in the list of longest serving members of Parliament in the current Lok Sabha.
