NESHWIN ALMEIDA
neshwin@herald-goa.com
In 2007, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco arrived with his “Aeroplane” (symbol) and the Save Goa Party. Reginaldo Lourenco was the young Zilla Parishad leader and with his Regional party with Churchill Alemao as his leader, Reginaldo ripped through Francisco Sardinha’s votebank and defeated the 6 time MLA with a huge margin.
Post that, for Francisco Sardinha or better known as Fankun, he had to do a repeat of 1994 when he lost an election to Antonio Gaunkar, Then, he subsequently, went to Parliament in 1998 as an MP and this time too in the 2007 bypoll in the Lok Sabha and he went as an MP and won the subsequent 2009 Lok Sabha polls to become third time MP from South Goa. But in 2014, despite being the sitting MLA, Francisco once again was denied a Congress and Reginaldo contest for the MP’s post but lost his first election to Narendra Sawaiker of the BJP.
“ I won six elections as MLA and 3 elections as MP and one as a panch when I became a Deputy Sarpanch and started my political career in the 1970s. I’m definitely not interested in another election and call it quits. I had an inclination to contest from Curtorim but they made it clear that the ticket is for the sitting MLA and despite me working to build the Fatorda Congress block, I had no interest to contest from there,” explains Francisco Sardinha who’s enjoying his retired life from politics.
But Sardinha is a little unhappy and feels his party, the Congress is letting it slip on a chance of winning an election in Goa and making a comeback.
Francisco has no regrets of being denied the ticket in 2014 but he says he has moved on but his unhappy how the sitting MLA of Curtorim has not minced his words against his own party.
“ It’s incorrect when Reginaldo said that if my team is not batting well, then I am free to change my team. He may have friends in Regional parties and may have inclinations there but he shouldn’t wash dirty linen in public that brings a bad name to the party,” explains Sardinha who awaits for the party high command to declare the Congress candidates though he feels it’s too late.
We call his son Shalom, an engineer who was sore that the Congress denied him a ticket in 2012 though members of Ravi Naik, Churchill Alemao, Babush Monserrate families got tickets but not Shalom.
“I had told AAP to give me the ticket before Decemebr 15, 2016 but they didn’t and I felt it was way too late to canvas post that and hence I stayed away from its ticket selection process and told AAP I don’t want their ticket,” he said.
