Goemkarponn desk
Canacona: In politics it is said that one year is a short period to start preparing for the elections.
And with not even eight months to go for the assembly elections, all the four aspirants for BJP ticket from Canacona constituency has started working in their own interest and that too in their own different directions.
Incidentally Isidore Fernandes is the BJP MLA who switched sides from Congress, he has not missed any opportunity to say that while inducting in BJP he was assured of the BJP ticket together with other nine Congress MLAs who jumped ship with him.
Isidore Fernandes says that his work speaks for himself and he is available to anyone irrespective of party affiliations and he is a full time politician who strives hard to get development work in Canacona constituency and he is confident that the voters of Canacona will elect him with a thumping majority.
Fernandes says that he controls all the six panchayats in the constituency and has got
most of the twelve councillors of CMC as his supporters.
Other three aspirants are former minister Ramesh Tawadkar, former MLA Vijay Pai khot and former chairperson of CMC Ramakant Naikgaonkar. BJP top brass know clearly that due to dissidence in the party, they lost the Canacona sit to Congress in the last elections.
And this time also the task doesn’t seem to be easy as the seat is one and the claimants are four. But the differences between the aspirants for the BJP ticket are clearly visible as each leader is seen organizing his own program’s with his personal supporters trying to show his presence to the voters of Canacona as well as the state leadership.
However many voters in the constituency feel that politicians are like frogs, who hibernate after the elections only to wake up during the election year.
And the same is happening in Canacona, in the last elections four candidates stood for the elections, except for the winning candidate all other four were not seen till now, many feel.
However after the entry of sitting MLA Isidore Fernandes into the BJP, the Congress party local leaders fill comfortable as they feel that one of them will ultimately will get the ticket, it’s to be seen whether the traditional Congress voter will still vote for Hand as the party is getting decimated state after state and election after election.
BJP is now facing similar issues that Congress has been facing perennially of dissidence, last elections BJP had double trouble but after the induction of Isidore Fernandes into the party it looks like they are going to have triple trouble or could be its quadruple.
And thats because former chairperson of CMC and current councillor Ramakant Naikgaonkar who is a hardcore BJP leader has thrown his hat in the ring, the ring masters of BJP will have to do a careful balancing act otherwise it is going to be tough to win the seat in the next election many in Canacona feel.
Ramesh Tawadkar former minister in the BJP government who is currently the vice president of the party is confident that he will get the party ticket.
Tawadkar had resigned from BJP when he was denied the party ticked and had contested as an independent during last elections, he polled 7,739 votes (27.16% of the total votes polled) and came third behind Vijay Pai Khot of BJP who polled 8,745 votes with 30.69% vote share.
Later Tawadkar was taken back in the party fold and was appointed as the vice president.
Vijay Pai Khot a former BJP MLA is another front runner for the BJP ticket and he is not making much fuss about it, his supporters say that they will think of crossing the river after they reach to the river, what’s the point in thinking now they say.
Rama Naikgaonkar a former chairperson of CMC and current councillor has made his intentions very clear, he says that he has worked for BJP since last 15 years and he should get the BJP ticket.
Looking at the current scenario the political pundits of Canacona say that its going to be tough for the BJP local high command to satisfy each of the four aspirants as there is only one ticket at stake, two swords cannot be kept in one room, but here they have four swords in one room and who will cut whom only time will tell.