There was a captain on board the ship, a tiatrist, Joaquim’s former PA, the former Cuncolim chairperson, Advocate John Monteiro and many others. Finally John Monteiro took a good a chunk of 4811votes and that saw the defeat of Joaquim at the hands of BJP’s Rajan Naik by a whopping 1,273 votes.
But many factors stirred that result the last time. One being the campaign that Joaquim was an outsider and a Varca man representing Cuncolim, Secondly was an anti-incumbency factor and thirdly that Joaquim was part of the family raj gang where four members of the Alemao clan contested polls and all four lost.
But this time it’s been different, Rajan being subtle and quiet and concentrating only on his work has faced the ire of being an MLA never seen or never spoken and also despite a lot of work, Rajan has failed to fulfill the main pointers on his manifesto.
Rajan himself who’s media shy, never speaks to the public in his first tenure from 2012 till date is more remembered for the media catching him with his pants down and photographed peeing in public besides a roadside bush on the way to the Assembly.
But Rajan’s tenure has been which lots of highs and lows like appointed South Goa Planning Development Authority, then sacked in the year 2015 for non performance and to make way for Mauvin Godinho, the lone Congress MLA to get a position in the BJP government. By then Rajan had declared that he won’t contest again. But after the sacking Rajan said it was a rumour and that he is poll ready. In January 2016, Rajan was given the Human Resource Development Corporation, Chairman’s posts and he could give many jobs to the surrounding youth. And now Rajan who always a boasts a great relationship with his poll rivals is excited to campaign for a second stint.
Elvis Gomes quit his job in the Goa government to become the AAP convenor and CM candidate and to contest polls from Cuncolim.
Elvis refuses to delve into the fact that the constituency has too many anti BJP candidates and that the vote split between him Joaquim, Cleophasio Dias and John Monteiro will once again bamboozle Rajan Naik to victory.
Elvis feels that lack of uninterrupted power supply, pollution from the industrial estate and bad roads and facilities and the delay in the rail-over/under bridges in the constituency will turn the elections for him. He also believes that he will cover enough ground.
But then there is a four way fight within the Congress itself for a party ticket. ZP member Cleophas Dias, 2012 elections second runners up John Monteiro, losing candidate Joaquim Alemao and the former Cuncolim Municipal Chairperson who fell out with Joaquim Alemao none other than Devendra Dessai are all in fray with others for the Congress ticket and the ones who don’t get it will contest independents or are hopefuls for a Goa Forward, UGDP among other tickets.
Similarly John Monteiro was made to join the Congress and he had clearly stated that he is disillusioned with Rajan not performing hence he will work to bring the Congress back to power but now he seems to long out of fray and the party itself has ignored him and sidelined him.
A strong and young prospect and working through the ZP is Cleopasio Dias who has categorically stated that he will contest no matter what and claims he has the assurance of Luizinho Faleiro to get the ticket as the young face while Cuncolim is a constituency where caste and community matter and Devendra Dessai is holding his cards close to his chest to watch who gets the Congress ticket.
But locals are confident that the vote split will benefit one party and a single candidate. The candidates needs to find a method to eliminate themselves and sort their own issues and then take the issues of the constituency but the BJP also faces a blemish from its push for a National Engineering College on Cuncolim’s greenlands.
