NESHWIN ALMEIDA
neshwinalmeida@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: It’s a season of many things in Goa from tourism to election maybe not EDM parties but this week we analyses another seasonal trend that pops up once in five years.
It’s Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party. A breakaway Congress party that he founded almost two decades back because of the mantra that Sonia Gandhi was not Indian. But Pawar broke all rules. Alliance with Congress from 2008 till 2015, enjoyed all the plump posts in the cabinet ministry with Praful Patel, had Government in Goa, Maharstra and other states and finally cut all ties with the Congress across India in 2015. Post-2015, the NCP even extended support to Shiv Sena and sought an alliances with them.
“After being there for so many years I quit the NCP for the simple reason that the top leaders are disgruntled and so power hungry that they will compromise all value systems of alliances. Also, the party was doing nothing but only sitting and watching since it lost all its seats in Goa in the 2012 polls. I was fed up with the way it functioning,” said Trajano D’Mello, who abandoned the NCP to return to the Congress fold.
Now, the NCP plans to field George Barreto in Navelim, Vincent Rodrigues in Nuvem, Jose Phillip D’Souza in Vasco, Nelly Rodrigues in Cortalim and Rakhi Naik in Sanguem.
But the party will face a tricky situation if it ties up with the Congress since George maybe vying for a seat against Congress President Luizinho Faleiro.
“The NCP was on the decline, but I worked so hard for the last 5 years to keep it going. I got great leaders like Nelly who finished close to Matanhy last time and is a clean face in politics. Rakhi and George and especially Vincent are so strong and we have a great chance in these polls,” explains former Revenue Minister Jose Phillip D’Souza who’s looking for comeback in politics from Vasco.
The NCP made big news when they chanced upon Churchill Alemao last week after he was continuously snubbed by the Congress. Churchill met party leaders Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel and Goa desk in charge Nawab Malik and finally joined the party last week despite his JICA Watergate Scam blot. Churchill a few months back was languishing in prison for a case of taking commissions and bribes as PWD Minister in the Digambar Kamat government between 2007 and 2012.
Churchill himself has travelled from the Congress to the UGDP to the Save Goa Front to Congress again and then the Trinamol Congress and now to the NCP.
“The party is known for wanderers. In 2009, Lok Sabha elections Jitendra Desprabhu himself left the Congress a night before and joined the NCP and then contested polls on their symbol and then returned to the Congress. It shows how disgruntled the party is,” explained Mickky Pacheco who laughs at the many parties mushrooming and vying just before polls.
But NCP president Jose Phillip himself is not very happy with the central leadership trying to bring former minister Dayanand Narvekar into the party fold since Narvekar also has the ticketgate scam blot and is even indicted.
“I never approached Narvekar and neither my leaders told me anything about Narvekar, but the media has directly shows that Shard and Narvekar are in talks. This annoys me that I am not in the loop,” said Jose Phillip.
The NCP has many disgruntled leaders and even made way for Yuri Alemao in sanguem in 2012 just so that the Congress doesn’t project of giving four tickets to the Alemao family. But now as the NCP youth wing head Yuri has disowned the party and is busy campaigning for his father n Cuncolim for a Congress re-nomination.
The NCP and its leaders including Praful Patel have been doing the rounds in Goa looking for alliances and candidates since it’s been on a decline in Maharstra and many parts of Goa and the party itself is as uncertain as the charter flights in the tourist season in Goa. The Congress president himself downplays the party as a seasonal fruit. The future of the party will be decided in 2017 as the clock ticks on the symbol and realistically too.
