Team Herald
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PORIEM: Some things don’t change in and around Shripad Naik. The river that flows in front of his house, the logs of wood which lie in front and the simplicity that covers his house. After three elections that he has consecutively won, he can probably campaign in his sleep, a gift that he might want to put to good use now. For this time around, Shripad Naik is pushing himself to the hilt, knowing that his return to Parliament is not a given.
So it’s a 6.30 start, parathas or idlis for breakfast and the road thereafter. As the journey enters narrow bends into a gorgeous stretch after Banastari towards Marcel and then into Satarri, the kingdom of the Ranes, bhau (not his second but a term of endearment that has become his first name). He is due to spend the day at Poriem, the backyard of the leader of the opposition Pratapsing Rane and has for company a member of his family and his sons namesake, Vishwajeet Rane,the son of Krishnaji Rao Rane.
In Saleli where these Ranes live, their writ pretty much runs large as it always used to. Saleli is where in 2005, the tenants on land rose in revolt against the upper caste land owners or Khashes, leading to the death of a member of the Rane family. A scion of that family, Vishwajeet K Rane, who narrowly lost to the official Rane prince-ling and his cousin, Vishwajeet Pratapsingh Rane, is handling Bhau’s fortunes in this Poriem and adjoining areas.
As Bhau, travels in his Innova, a very small luxury he affords in contrast to the massive SUV’s of the saffron Rane’s, the local unit and its workers mobilizes voters in each booth through it’s booth committees. It’s clear that the party has very much taken charge of Naiks campaigning rather than leave him to his own devices, because the seat is vital and with Ravi Naik in the fray and with certain pockets of turbulence in Calangute, Aldona and St Cruz.
A key member of the Chief Ministers staff has been with him through the campaign and he looks after the brick and mortar of the election build up. He and his team, consisting of many young men from different constituencies, are a part of the larger team, each with a specific responsibility.
For instance, on that day, someone from Anjuna carried with him details of amounts disbursed under each of Parrikars populists schemes. So while Bhau went temple hopping through satarri meeting party workers, devotees and flower sellers in various devasthans in Padosem, Tulsimala and Poriem, his team stayed used that time to check of money had been received for schemes, if voters were enrolled and took notes of other local complaints.
For Bhau though, it was a time for prayer and to seek blessings from the divine. And no place of worship was untouched as his three car cavalcade hopped from village to village. They ranged from tiny temples to grand centres like the Shankarnath ‘mat’ and the Keri Asoba Devasthan.
In most places he is joined by panchas and sarpanchas like Guru Gurav of Poriem who organise small tree corner meetings in the middle of forest clearings like in Padosem. It’s a different world here. In this forest meeting, villagers surrounded Shripad Naik and demanded resolutions of problems that Narendra Modi, in his wildest dreams wouldn’t have conceived.
A team of monkeys have been destroying crops and the government has done nothing to protect them. There is no shelter near the village temple where jatra (drama teams) come for various festivals and live and cook there. Naik promises a look in.
On most days, as he ends his day, when it’s already the next day in the dead of the night, Naik can look back on the tough road that he is negotiating. He hopes that with some divine intervention and some hard sell of the Parrikar government, he can be one more foot soldier in Modis army, a position that might even get a four time MP a berth in the cabinet yet again, if BJP finally finds the route to power.
