Team Herald
PANJIM: The 66-year-old Shripad Yesso Naik on Thursday scripted history by winning the North Goa Parliamentary constituency for the fifth consecutive term. Naik has retained the Lok Sabha seat after he won for the first time in 1999 on BJP ticket.
Naik equaled the record of being the longest serving MP after Congress’ Eduardo Faleiro, who also won five consecutive parliamentary elections in South Goa from 1977-91.
Naik is the only MP to be appointed in Union cabinet twice- first as Union Minister for State for Tourism and then as Union Minister for State (IND charge) in the Ministry of AYUSH.
After winning his first election as MP by defeating Congress’ Ravi Naik in 1999, for Naik, there was no going back. He held his seat in this constituency winning in 2004, 2009 and 2014. The 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw BJP winning both the parliamentary seats. Naik’s victory margin was 244844 votes, which is very high for a constituency that has around 5 lakh voters.
This election too, Naik polled almost 55 percent of the total votes cast in the constituency. He defeated Congress’ Chodankar by 80247 votes.
“I am very happy the way people have been reposing their faith in me every year. It is my work and their support that has helped me to sail through all the five elections,” Naik said.
In his earlier life, Naik worked with former BJP statesman late Manohar Parrikar to build up the party, which was nowhere until 1999. Though, Naik always wanted to return to State politics, it never really happened.
