TEAM HERALD
PONDA: The Naik family in all likelihood would never get a Congress ticket, Congress top honchos said, given that the elder Naik – Ravi- a former MP, chief minister and home minister in the previous government was routed very badly in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls.
If the South Goa Congress campaign has been hit by dissidence, its North Goa one has been hit by allegations that its candidate did not put in any efforts to win the battle.
Congress insiders point to a series of meetings that were abruptly cancelled or literally forced into being no shows, and party cadres not being given the right type of incentive to perform given the Congress culture of ‘incentivising’ during elections.
There was opposition to the ticket being given to him given that he had a lot of accusations against him and his family about their alleged connection in the drug trade – a charge denied by Ravi. But the on the reason that there was no charge sheet filed, the Congress gave him the ticket.
Ravi has however defended himself arguing that his 15-day campaign was too short to cover all areas of North Goa.
“I had only 15 days to campaign and I was unable to reach out to all voters in North Goa. On the other hand, BJP’s Shripad Naik was in contact with the people in North Goa for 15 years and this also benefited him, beside the Modi effect.”
