TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The Nationalist Congress Party has to pull out its bootstraps and show a semblance of unity, among its feuding factions, at the instance of the high command, in its calculus to remain relevant at the 2014 General Elections.
The minor rift between the present executive of the state Nationalist Congress Party and the entrenched powers that were ruling the roost in organizational matters thus far has emerged ahead of the constitution of the new state executive.
Insiders inform that in a bid to calm things down, especially given the fact that the NCP supremo union minister Sharad Pawar’s determination to wrest the North Goa seat for the party at the Lok Sabha elections, orders have been issued by the high command to accommodate all factions.
Thus far, the conduit between the high command and local leaders has been the coordinator Dr Prafulla Hede, who has been the power behind the throne. The outgoing president Surendra Sirsat has been a figure-head for a large part of his tenure. However he has been sidelined in the changes in the local hierarchy after the debacle in the local polls – including the appointment of a new in-charge for Goa. But in a bid to strike a balance, the new president will have to accommodate his loyalists and opponents in the appointments too.
The Pawar-led party has thrown its weight behind the mining lobby and has been pushing their agenda for local consumption, given that a large part of the mining belt in North Goa is strongly BJP inclined.
Seeking to assuage and make inroads, the NCP chief has been making the right sounds and seeking to make common ground with the common people. During the last elections, the party came very close to winning the north Goa Lok Sabha seat, Congress import Jitendra Deshprabhu doing well.
The present president Nilkant Halarnkar is a former minister and MLA with strong support in Tivim and surrounding areas. Hede has been virtually the in-charge of the party during the last elections as the former president did not have much say in the running or the ticket distribution.
The NCP which was humbled in the March 2012 elections has been touting that it would overhaul its Goa unit since then. For the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the NCP has been trying to reconstitute its committees and also its block committees with an eye on the 2017 elections.
The NCP had three seats in the previous assembly and that was reduced to zero in the 2012 elections.
