Nana takes on the BJP in Vasco

NAVIN JHA

VASCO: It has never happened that a chief minister or minister would leave Vasco without paying a courtesy visit to the residence of Vasco’s well-known political godfather Narayan Bandekar, alias Nana, but this happened on Wednesday. Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, who was in Vasco with South Goa MP Narendra Sawaikar, to inaugurate nine offices of BJP-backed candidates spent over two hours in the town but left the port town without meeting Nana.

This happened, because Nana has fielded candidates against the BJP-backed candidates in almost all the wards of Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC). Nana has entered the political field not only to retain his grip on the MMC but to also show political leaders that without his support no Vasco politician can have a smooth ride.

However, political analysts look at this differently. According to a few leaders, if Nana’s calculations go wrong and he doesn’t succeed in getting his panel elected with a majority, this would lead to his losing the unofficial crown of being Vasco’s political godfather.

“For the last six months, Nana and his team have been closely planning to field candidates against leaders from the ruling party and other strong independents. This also means that Nana has decided to go all out against the BJP, the party he had supported in the last assembly elections and got its candidates elected from Vasco and Mormugao. For him this municipal election could be the semi final before the final which would be the next assembly elections. It is known that all is not well between Nana and Vasco BJP leaders. Fielding candidates against the BJP is one way of expressing his anger against the party,” a political leader from Vasco, who has been very close to Nana, told Herald.

In the last municipal elections, Nana’s role commenced after the results were declared as he had only extended support to a few candidates. It was MLA Milind Naik and the then MLA Jose Philip D’Souza who managed to get their panels elected. The political games started after Nana was invited to take the lead and bring the councillors together to form the ruling panel. As Nana had issues with D’Souza, he sought Naik’s help and a new group of councilors was formed. 

Nana has taken an active role this time and having lost faith in those whom he had got elected in the 2012 assembly elections has formed a new group with very few old faces named ‘Vasco Development Front’. 

However, here too something went wrong for after initial talks on fielding candidates, Nana distanced himself from D’Souza. Now, besides candidates from his own panel he is also supporting candidates floated by Sankalp Amonkar in nine wards.

This election Team Nana has 23 candidates in 25 wards. The aim is to win a majority. The results will tell if this experiment to float a panel and go before people was right. It is also linked to whether Nana would continue to be political godfather of Vasco.